Stars: Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment, Jay Mohr, Jim Caviezel, Jon Bon Jovi, Angie Dickinson

Director: Mimi Leder

Summary: Trevor has had a troubled life but when his social studies teacher suggests that, as an assignment, Trevor should think of something to change the world and put it into action he comes up with a revolutionary idea. Instead of paying a favour back, his idea is to pay three new people a favour, thus changing the lives of all around him...

Based on a best-selling novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde and boasting the star power of three prior Oscar winners--Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment--PAY IT FORWARD spins a heartwarming yarn about an 11-year-old boy who comes up with an utopian idea as a project for school. History teacher Eugene Simenot (Spacey) offers the same ongoing extra-credit assignment he has proffered every year: Come up with an idea that will change the world. However, he expects nothing more from his students than halfhearted efforts that fall far shy of their mark. Simenot is therefore unprepared for precocious, irrepressible Trevor McKinney (played with wide-eyed wonder by Osment), who conjures up a stunning scheme. Trevor suggests the concept that every person who benefits from someone else's good deed should "pay it forward," instead of paying it back, and in turn offer favors to three other people. The first guinea pig for Trevor's experiment is his overworked, imperfect mom (Helen Hunt) for whom he tries to find a boyfriend.
Director Mimi Leder, best known for such powerful thrillers as DEEP IMPACT, imbues the solid script of PAY IT FORWARD with a more grandiose aura. However, it is the movie's triumvirate of heralded stars--Spacey, Hunt, and Osment--that propels this compelling yarn.

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Director Mimi Leder's third movie, Pay it Forward, finds her moving into softer, more intimate territory after making her name with a pair of high-budget action spectaculars, The Peacemakerand Deep Impact. This is a would-be heart-warming fable about the power of human kindness, but it's handled with such heavy sententiousness as to suggest that she might do better sticking to the big-bang stuff. Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense, A.I.), son of a struggling lone parent (Helen Hunt) in Las Vegas, is influenced by inspirational teacher Kevin Spacey to come up with a scheme for social betterment: do acts of benevolence to three people, each of whom then does something good for three more, and so on. Inevitably, the lad's first ventures come to grief, but then the idea starts catching on and spreading, and a reporter in Los Angeles gets wind of it. This Readers Digest-ish scenario, treated with great solemnity by Leder and screenwriter Leslie Dixon, leaves the cast struggling to make something individual out of their pre-cooked roles. As you'd expect given such a line-up of acting talent, several scenes come off better than they deserve, and Spacey in particular does wonders with what is, in effect, two Hollywood clichés rolled into one: not just "offbeat inspirational teacher" but "shy, reclusive burns victim" as well. Interesting, too, to see a Vegas-set movie that shows a low-rent side of the city well away from the glitz and glamour of the Strip. But in the end, all else is drowned out by the clatter of predetermined plot-points being hammered home.

On the DVD:Extras include a commentary from Leder, and a 13-minute "making-of" documentary that includes cast and director interviews. None of it, though, tells us much we couldn't have gathered from the movie. The clean widescreen (1.85:1) print and the Dolby 5.1 sound deliver on quality, and come fully into their own in the all-out bravura finale--shameless tear-jerking on a grand scale. --Philip Kemp

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Audio Commentary, The Making Of
Subtitles:	English, Romanian, Bulgarian, Arabic
Year:	2000
Release Date:	July 30, 2001
Runtime:	119 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	D 018877
Keywords:	General, Forward, Drama, Pay
Genre:	Drama