Seven Pounds (2009)

Shit just got real yo. I hanker for the days of Bad Boys... badly. At what point did Will Smith lose his charm and good-natured humour. Even if it was cheesy, it was infinitely more watchable than his current incarnation as Will Smith: serious actor. I can’t tell if Seven Pounds is a Christian, Buddhist or if the rumours are to be believed, scientologist propaganda film. And Will Smith, at its helm, is a tortured and serious protagonist. You can tell he’s serious because he grimaces a lot, throws phones on the floor after intense conversations and looks like he’s about to cry everytime someone tells him a heart-wrenching story. Seven Pounds is a serious film with a serious message and one of those thickly-plotted structures where the main protagonist is holding all the information cards and revealing them slowly, showing, in a way, that everything has been carefully thought out and, despite the heartache on the screen, ultimately you didn’t need to invest any emotion in the foregone conclusion of a climax. In Seven Pounds, Will Smith has done something bad. He’s atoning for his wrongdoings by drastically changing the lives of seven strangers who he is able to help. He steals his brother, an IRS investigator’s, identity and goes about researching who to help. Before he does the ultimate act of atonement for his wrongdoing at the end. But he doesn’t chance on two factors: one, people either being resistant to or unworthy of his gifts and two, falling in love with Rosario Dawson, who despite her major illness is a stone-cold fox. Whoops. Big mistake. Puts a clanger in the plan machine and slowly his high-arching messianic journey unravels. The problem lies in his self-righteousness. His judging. His messianic complex. It’s hard to not see this is as a sanctimonious diatribe about how horrible we are while the good people suffer in silence. Will Smith, no longer Big Willy or Slick Willy or The Fresh Prince, has lost all his charisma and developed a huge self-righteous streak not completely unlike another former wide-grinned top gun. As a film, despite the pious plot, it is slow and lingers and anchors itself on a central Smith performance, holding on his every reaction and inner-turbulence. Thus, it becomes a plod and a dirgey pain to watch.