Review of Seven Pounds (2008) by Gabriel R — 31 May 2012

It's a con job that feels like a precisely attenuated work of art, elegantly weaving flashbacks and ellipses into the story in an effort to conceal how shamelessly manipulative it is in the end. And as always, Smith comes out a winner. A collage of strong scenes, dull bits, good filmmaking and a dissatisfying emotional payoff. A laudable attempt to tackle heavyweight subject-matter that ends up just being heavy weather. Preposterous romantic melodrama, which uses a fractured narrative to cloud an absurd plot that would probably be laughed off the screen if it were presented in a straightforward manner. An endlessly sentimental fable about sacrifice and redemption that aims only at the heart at the expense of the head. Intricately constructed so as to infuriate anyone predominantly guided by rationality and intellect. Mr. Smith's latest film is about nothing less than life and death, sin and atonement, and it takes the soggy cake for multiple layers of sentimentality topped by indigestible grandiosity. Seven Pounds has a heart as big as all outdoors. Unfortunately it's made out of high-fructose bull.

VERDICT: "Not So Hot" - [Negative Reaction] These films are truly terrible films. They are not the worst things ever made, but they are definitely awful and should not be seen by anyone. (Films that are rated 1.5 or 2 stars).