Most Recommended Movie on DVD

Title : 7 Pounds
Actor : Will Smith
Review :
There’s a fine line between veiling plot points for the sake of mystery and obfuscating them to the point of annoyance. The problem with Seven Pounds (well, one of several) is that its intended twist is pretty easy to figure out, and it’s a paltry one at that. Director Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) was striving for something heartrending with this meditation on mortality, but what he got was a schmaltzy do-gooder tale, with a disgruntled Will Smith playing the mysteriously tortured hero.

Smith plays Ben Thomas, a man whose plastered on frown attests to his empty emotional state. He moves from a lavish beach condo to a slummy motel, the headquarters for a perplexing personal mission whose details are unclear at first. The film opens on Thomas making a 911 call where he reports his own suicide to the operator, then we’re transported back in time to see how he arrived at such a desperate destination.

Ben's days are spent cruising hospitals and making cryptic connections with strangers rather than at a traditional nine-to-five. Why so serious, Mr. Thomas? Muccino gets to that, but it takes a labyrinthine journey to reach the faintest hint of clarity. Smith, who displayed solid dramatic cred in Ali, gives an android-like performance in Seven Pounds. Ben, despite the suggestion that he is on some moral crusade, is unlikeable, even when we learn what personal tragedy catalyzed his actions. Each scowl is hard-wrought, each line delivered with wooden indifference.

Ben is nothing without his tender female foil, played with candied affection by Rosario Dawson. Dawson’s Emily Posa is a cardiac patient in need of a transplant. Without one, doctors estimate that she has a mere month to live (cue strings), which is when Ben waltzes into her life. Not coincidentally, of course, but she doesn’t know that. Being the naturally good-natured gal that she is, Emily is eager to chip away at the sober partition Ben has placed between himself and the world. She prompts him to tell her bedtime stories, invites him for a home cooked meal, and shares her passion for printmaking with him, effectively melting his heart in the process. Dawson, who is both a capable actress and "aw, shucks" adorable, is the oxygen to Smith's asphyxia, and every frame she graces brings welcome lightness to this too-serious-for-its-own-good film.

Parallel to the budding romance between Emily and Ben we’re presented with flashbacks to Ben’s idyllic former marriage. As you may intuit, something oh-so-horrible happened to transform Ben from beach-frolicking spouse to socially-inept mannequin, but this “same ol’ [sad] song” material is best left to saccharine weekly dramas, not a film so obviously striving—and ultimately failing—at being meaningful.

Seven Pounds’ conclusion amounts to a neat little game of connect-the-dots. Why he courts Emily and six others for “X” purpose and why the suicide report at its outset coalesce into one giant, “Ohhhh, I see.” But if you pay close enough attention you’ll catch on much more quickly, despite having a smattering of helter-skelter facts and scenarios thrown in your face, but little logic.

It's a tearjerker for the most acutely sensitive among us.