Rating: 
Summary: GREAT MOVIE!
Review: This movie is one of the most heart-touching movies I've ever seen. It has great actors that know what they're doing and give an expectacular performance. It will also make you cry if you're a sensitive person like me.
Rating: 
Summary: What to write
Review: Overall, it wasn't a bad movie. It wasn't Spacey, Hunt, or Osments best performances, but certainly not their worst.Pay It Foward starts off slow. I was bored for a little while. For one thing, that view out of the classroom...I'd kill if I could look out a window in my school and not find myself looking into ghetto's. Sigh... Anyway, when Haley Joel Osments character comes up with the idea of paying It Foward, he starts out with a homeless addict, which fails, then his social studies teacher, which fails, and a friend, which also fails. Things aren't looking good. But when His mom and the social studies teacher, um, have some time together, its worked and Pay it Foward has done its mission, but not until the superb, but brief, performance by Angie Dickinson, comes along do things really start going. Along with the main plot is the story of a Journalist who is following Pay It FOward. Now, until the end, I was bored with this plot. It showed no purpose in my mind, but by the end of the movie, I was going "ohhhhhhh..." Not bad, could be better, the ending leaves a little to be desired(So nothing happens to the kid...huh, funny. Shouldn't he be, like, under lock and key?) but the great last scene revamps the movie to four stars and,..., it's great
Rating:
Summary: Open Your Heart...
Review: I do not review poor films. I do not review mediocre films. I refuse to. I leave that to Maltin and Ebert. I DO try to impress upon you when a great film comes to the fore. Pay It Forward is a Hollywood production (usually the Kiss Of Mediocrity), that took a step forward. As if you could lose casting Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt together, you now have Haley Joel Osment as the catalyst. The so altuistic idea of doing something nice for someone BEFORE you need to, has been around since the earliest Greek plays. The Greeks just never presented a script as perfect as this. While the underlying story of Spacey(Osment's school teacher whom Osment arranges to fall in love with Hunt, Osment's mother) and Hunt (Osment's mother who is a recovering alcholic with a missing husband) have both been played before, there is a magic between the two. Both have their abusive demons controlling their lives (Spacey's character has a bit of a surprise). Each has such a loneliness unique to themselves, but shared. But it is all truly surpassed by the touching and powerful performance of Osment. Ever since The Ususal Suspects, I've known Spacey was good. And I have been in love with Hunt since Mad About You. But Osment is something special. This young man proved himself in 6th Sense. How do you follow that character? How do you avoid the sophmore jinx? You take the role of Trevor McKinney, an altruistic child who believes the world should be, and can be made better, by doing right by someone without their asking. Osment conveys emotion, as do Spacey and Hunt, but his performance surpasses theirs. Most reviews ruin the movie by giving away the story. I won't do that. I think the word of mouth from those who have seen it will give most viewers an idea of the plot. It is the FEELING from these actors that left the screen and enveloped me. There was such a range of emotion, that I was completely drawn in. Jon Bon Jovi as the abusive husband is well cast (yes, he CAN act) and Angie Dickenson should have won the Academy Award for best supporting actress as Hunt's alchoholic mother. I refuse to reveal the plot or story like most reviewers. It would sully the effect. You will watch this film, you will not get up to get a snack, and you will cry at the end. Men, I mean you too. You will watch the credits wondering if the Pay It Forward idea would really work. Do NOT pass on this movie if your wife or girlfriend suggests it. This is not a chick flick. This is quite simply an excellent flick.
Rating: 
Summary: Manipulative ending
Review: I really liked this movie until the last couple of minutes. The ending was contrived, unnecessary, and left me cold. WHY, WHY, WHY do some moviemakers insist on ruining a perfectly good movie with arbitrary and manipulative melodrama?? I do not mind tragic or sad endings if they are poignant. In this case, it actually worked against the message of the movie. Boo hiss! Thumbs down to the screenwriter for a very poor and tasteless choice at the end!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and thought provoking movie
Review: Pay It Forward is a thought provoking, feel good/bad movie (I'll explain that in a bit, btw ending is spoiled ahead). The three main actors here, Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment play their respective roles very well, with depth and emotion. The "Pay It Forward" concept in itself is very interesting. If it started with one person and everyone did "Pay It Forward," in only 21 levels the whole world population would have been "paid forward." Although "Pay It Forward," relies on Utopian precepts, in the end it shows quite the contrary, that the world is not a perfect place, which is evidenced by the ending. The ending really could have gone 2 ways. One, the directors could have chosen to make a happy ending, where everything turned out ok, and that's that. Or two, they show Trevor trying to change the world and getting hurt because of it. Although the point made with ending 2 is more realistic, I feel that Trevor's death is contrived and in a way spoils the movie. I guess it was done to make the movie a bit more "serious," but I took it seriously anyways with Mr. Simonet's dark past and Arlene's problems as well. This would have been a full fledged feel good movie if it had ending 1, but in this case, it's what I call a feel ambivalent movie. So instead of the motto of this movie being, "you can change the world," it becomes more of, "you can change the world but sometimes you lose." I dunno, I guess the ending just doesn't sit well with me, made me feel like I was a bit cheated. That's not degrading the movie in any way, I still really like it a lot. Hopefully on the DVD they have an alternate ending that would have been more to my liking. In any case, I'll be paying it forward, and I hope you will too...
Rating:
Summary: Good, but bad ending
Review: I really liked Pay It Forward. The entire movie really makes you think. But then, in comes the ending. It made absolutely no sense. But the rest of the movie was excellent, even if the homeless Jerry wasn't focused on enough. Oh well, can't have everything.
Rating:
Summary: Gratuitous Chick Flick
Review: I don't usually like Chick Flicks, but Pay It Forward was a compelling story and kept me watching to the near end. Then, for no good reason, the ending breaks what could have been a really good story into nothing more than a gratuitous event with no apparent objective other than to make every woman in the audience break into tears. It added nothing to the story and soured me completely on the film. A nice film (and this from an Action Film kinda guy) goes to waste for the last few minutes. A waste of time, except that Hellen Hunt is in it. ;-)
Rating: 
Summary: With a little editing, could have been great...
Review: When I read what this movie was about, I decided to rent it right away. I thought "Great concept". I also thought "Great cast." Unfortunately this movie fell quite short of my expectations. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I liked the way the storyline traveled back and forth. It really kept me in suspense, I wondered how the two would eventually connect. Also, Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Osment gave great performances, considering what they had to work with. What I didn't like about this movie, however, was that the movie really wasn't about "Pay it Forward." Most of the movie focused on the relationship between the mother (Hunt) and the teacher (Spacey), and what they've overcome in life (and were still overcoming). And what's really unfortunate about this, is that the "in-between" people - the grandmother, the prisoner, and the lawyer, for example - were excellent characters who should have been developed much further. The thing that really disturbed me the most about this movie is the message that the ending sends. I can handle a sad ending as much as anybody, but how can anyone in this world be convinced to do good to others after seeing that ending? I think that this really tells us "What's the point in doing good?" In these troubled times, we need to know that we can do good for others without getting our hearts trampled. This movie does not tell us that. So, if the writers would have focused more on the "pay it forward" concept, and less on the love story, and the ending would have been different, this would have been a winner for me. Too bad, because this story has real potential.
Rating:
Summary: Who knows what kind of difference we could make?
Review: I've wanted to see this movie since I started to see the previews because I loved the premise. I think it's something that would truly change the world if it would only catch on. I was thrilled to see Haley Joel Osment playing such a role. He is a true "wunderkind" or perhaps an "Indigo Child" as they are often referred to today. He carries with him such an air of mystique and prophecy that I just know that his movies hold valuable messages for all of us. It surprises me that other reviewers couldn't focus long enough to realize that the sub-plots were all intended to connect via the "pay it forward" context, as we realize that Trevor's homework assignment has influenced people, events and places far beyond his own awareness. Yes, Helen Hunt looks like a witch, but she's playing an alcoholic -- they're rarely pretty, but often good-hearted. She's also a battered woman, and a brutally honest confrontation with Trevor's teacher forces her to question her self-destructive loyalty to the father of her son -- a loud and clear message to women who may be putting their children at risk by paying too much respect to fathers who don't deserve it. Even Trevor himself dreads his father's return, and father's rights advocates could benefit from the realization that sometimes children *don't* need fathers who hurt them and/or their mothers. Paying it forward is about taking risks for others, risks that are hard, challenging, and scary. Trevor himself honors the courage it took his mother to forgive her mother for the childhood that caused her such pain. It takes courage -- and that is why the end is as powerful as it is. I won't spoil it, but I want to say that it was a statement that underscored the kind of courage it takes to change the world. I wasn't too crazy about the final scenes, they were anti-climactic and stretched the point. Still, it was a beautiful story and if only we could all make the effort to "pay it forward" who knows what kind of difference we could make?
Rating:
Summary: 4 star acting can't make up for a 2 star script
Review: If you've seen American Beauty or The Sixth Sense, chances are you will see this movie no matter what anyone says -- and I can't say that I'm not with you on that reasoning... Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt are probably two of the most talented actors out there.. and who can resist little Haley Joel? Not me.. But the actual film isn't even close to Oscar-worthy. The writing just seems way too calculated and forceful in their intention to get you crying and out the door as quickly as possible. The end is a bummer and I'm not just saying that because I can't take a good tragedy. It just felt more like a moral slap on the wrist than a realistic story. Spacey, Osment and Hunt all gave great performances but that still can't make up for sloppy writing. Nice try though.
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