How much impact can one heartfelt idea have? a junior-high students class project idea ignites a chain reaction of goodness and consequences. The boys idea: when someone does you a favor dont pay it back pay it forward. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 11/11/2008 Starring: Kevin Spacey Haley Joel Osment Run time: 123 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Mimi Leder
Pay It Forward is a multi-level marketing scheme of the heart. Beginning as a seventh-grade class assignment to put into action an idea that could change the world, young Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) comes up with a plan to do good deeds for three people who then by way of payment each must do good turns for three other people. These nine people also must pay it forward and so on, ad infinitum. If successful, the resulting network of do-gooders ought to comprise the entire world. Trevor's attempts to get the ball rolling include befriending a junkie (James Caviezel) and trying to set up his recovering-alcoholic mother (Helen Hunt) with his burn-victim teacher (Kevin Spacey), who posed the assignment.

While this could have turned into unmitigated schmaltz, the acting elevates this film to mitigated schmaltz. By turns powerful and measured, the performances of Spacey, Hunt, and Osment can't make up for the many missteps in a screenplay that sanitizes the look of the lower-middle class and expects us to believe that homeless alcoholics and junkies speak in the elevated manner of grad students. (Can that really be Angie Dickinson as Hunt's dispossessed mother? Yes, it is!) The germ of the story is a good one, though, and one may wonder how it would have been handled by the likes of Frank Capra, who could balance sentiment with humor. But clearly Capra would never have let the ending of his version to take the nosedive into cliché and pathos that director Mimi Leder has allowed in this film. More than a few viewers will also recognize that Leder has blatantly borrowed her final image from Field of Dreams, where its intended effect was more keenly and honestly felt. --Jim Gay

Customer Rating:
Summary: Pay It Forward Delivers
Comment: This is a somewhat offbeat film that is both dark and uplifting. The message is universal and is suitable for most families with childre over 13. The great acting, coupled with a unique storyline make this a good film to watch and to own.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great movie, cheap prices and fast shipping.
Comment: Shipped on time, Amazon is so good at keeping you informed and on top of order tracking, etc. and I love the movie, it's really great for anyone of any age - a rarity these days.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A teaching moment for youth......
Comment: Although the theme is rather utopian in theory, if everyone did care enough to try it, it could make a difference, maybe not for the world but why not one small piece at a time. Using this movie for a group of young teens where we are working to decrease bullying in the school, it had impact for the better. Students were touched by the reality of the bullying situations and less than perfect home life scenerios. They related to its family dramas, family traumas and the less than perfect characters. To them, the simpicity of starting with three good acts paid forward was something that was not too unrealistic to strive for. This movie can be used as a teaching tool to improve character in adults as well as children. There is a soft nudity scene of love making that was a bit questionable for this age but its presentation was done tastefully and under the correct circumstance of offering unconditional love behind it. A sleeper movie that gives offers motivation time and time again, to be a better person.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great movie
Comment: I don't know how I missed this one for so many years. Great movie. I love Kevin Spacey so I expected to like this movie. This is just a fantastic, inspiring story. The whole "pay it forward" idea is something that everyone should think about in their lives. If every time someone does something for you, you can turn around and do something for someone else, wow, what a different world we'd all live in.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Favorite Movie
Comment: This is an amazing movie. The theme is that we are all connected in ways that we often don't even imagine. Recommend it highly.

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