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Seven Pounds
EMAILPRINTColumbia Pictures (Sony)
Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 216 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Grant Nieporte
Directed by: Gabriele Muccino
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 19, 2008
DVD: March 31, 2009
Running Time: 123 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for thematic material, some disturbing content and a scene of sensuality
Starring Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Michael Ealy, Barry Pepper, and Woody Harrelson
Ben Thomas is an IRS agent with a fateful secret who embarks on an extraordinary journey of redemption by forever changing the lives of seven strangers. (Sony Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
A movie that plays better if you know nothing about it going in.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Now, with Seven Pounds, the transformation of Will Smith is complete: Gone is any trace of love-me impishness, replaced by one of the sourest pusses Hollywood has seen since Joaquin Phoenix got his Screen Actors Guild card.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Gripping but gap-filled Seven Pounds will have half your brain asking "How could this be?" and the other half saying, "Shut up and go along for the ride!" Listen to the latter voice.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Some people will find it emotionally manipulative. Some people like to be emotionally manipulated. I do, when it's done well.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
A spiritual successor to "The Pursuit of Happyness," but darker and more oblique.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
While it doesn't break any new ground or provide any revelations, Seven Pounds is unabashedly emotional and cautiously hopeful. It's the feel-good movie for these feel-bad times.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Seven Pounds works better the more the viewer feels and the less he/she thinks. On an emotional level, one could decree that the movie is satisfying. On an intellectual level, it's disappointingly shallow.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
The movie is pretty unabashed about the all-but-corny sentiment: Each of us has something to give.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
The film's Italian director does achieve in his second American outing a pleasing blend of Hollywood professional sheen and European sensitivity to character details and nuances.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
This is what lifts Seven Pounds above other Smith dramas -- he does tentatively allow another adult onto his solitary planet.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Scott Mendelson
Seven Pounds is the very definition of a 'noble failure.'
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
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.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
As written, Seven Pounds would have always been a melancholy experience, but a lighter touch would have helped to keep you from noticing the implausibility of its plot.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
I'd like to make a 911 call myself: Lord, please stop this increasingly fine actor (Smith) from climbing onto another cross.
Read Full Review >Premiere Jenni Miller
Dawson is lovely to watch, and when Smith isn't furrowing his brow and looking concerned, he's not so bad himself.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
There's a head-pounding, gob-smacking literalness to this flick, extending from the title right through to the recurring imagery.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
The movie gets just enough right that the things it doesn't get right (beyond its overdependence on a not-so-surprising story puzzle) smack you cold in the face.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Seven Pounds is one part jigsaw puzzle, one part "The Giving Tree" and both parts marinated in melancholy.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Seven Pounds, coming after "The Pursuit of Happyness" and "I Am Legend," seems like the third in a trilogy of inspirational bummers.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Saintliness is a heavy burden to carry, and Smith can't help but buckle a bit. He's always interesting to watch, but crafting a real person out of his cardboard character proves an impossible task.
Read Full Review >Empire Ian Freer
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.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Seven Pounds has a heart as big as all outdoors. Unfortunately it's made out of high-fructose bull.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The whole narrative is too hollow and rickety as well as gimmicky for Muccino to breathe much life into it.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
An unintentionally ludicrous drama of repentance.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
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.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart
The rest of Seven Pounds feels like a half-hour "Twilight Zone" script that has been pressed onto a gob of Silly Putty and stretched to the sinking point.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
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.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Overall Seven Pounds is too heavy-handed and maudlin to be comprehensible, let alone moving. The real shocker is that not even Smith can rescue it.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The most transcendently, eye-poppingly, call-your-friend-ranting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-just-to-go-over-it-one-more-time crazily awful motion pictures ever made.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 216 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Holly R gave it an8:
I am pretty critical of movies and thought this movie was very provocative and interesting. Will Smith did a great job of playing a convincingly tortured man on a mission...I had no idea what this movie was about before I rented it, maybe that's the key (to either loving it or hating it) but IMHO it was excellent and unique.
[Anonymous] gave it a6:
It was an "okay" movie, though it seems that it's either love or hate for most reviewers on here (judging by the 0-1 and 9-10 dichotomy in the ratings). I wouldn't spend the time to watch it again, but i certainly wouldn't say it was the worst film of all time! It was emotional but questionable at times. I've liked almost every film that Smith has done, but this one just left me with a feeling of "Meh, that was wierd." Certainly not the most emotion or heartwrenching moving I've seen, so it doesn't win any points in that regard either.
Lori C gave it a10:
one of the best films that I have seen in a long time
Dimi B. gave it a4:
The movie is based on the same concept that 'pursuit of happiness' was built: hope, faith, love can surpass everything as long as we want it. Although chemistry was working fine in the 'pursuit', in Seven Pounds things have ended up to be a soap opera melodrama; Overemphasis on the drama in order for relief to bring greater results! Not to mention the fact that the scenario is a total mess in terms of timing. Begins somewhere in the middle of nowhere, no links with the incidents that's happening in the movie, to end up with the most ridiculous end I have ever seen! I guess Sony wanted a 'Pursuit of Happiness no2' and despite the fact that acting is amazing, nevertheless the structure of the scenario destroys everything positive in the movie.
Venessa H. gave it a7:
This movie is not as bad as it seems to get rated. I would still watch it again.
Dan C. gave it a9:
Can't figure out why this got so panned - it was slow, but hey, it's a drama. I found myself very attached to the characters, Will Smith always knocks it out of the park. Very much enjoyed the movie. Woody... nice performance! The problem with this film - the marketing was aweful. It did not convey ANYTHING to the moviegoer about the story.
Bradford N. gave it a9:
I was so surprised to see such low metacritic reviews. I thought it was an incredibly sincere deep movie. Smith portrayed well the depth of self - hatred man can fall to. To say it was manipulative is stupid - you're afraid of your own emotions if you're not willing to explore them. That's like walking out of The Dark Knight offended they tried to give you a sensory experience that would defy reality. Not a hollywood happy ending, but deep. Redemption is a powerful theme, but not a popular one apparently.
