Zoomtard

Call me stupid if you like and you’d be right. I thought it couldn’t be so bad because goshdarnedit Will Smith sure is likeable. But let’s be honest folks, 7 Pounds might be the worst movie of the year that isn’t The Spirit. In between studying for exams like a maniac I thought I’d take a few hours off and go down to Vue and get an over-priced coffee and catch a brain dead movie. I didn’t expect to be confronted by Rosario Dawson being passed off as someone on death’s door. I may not know much about congenital heart defects, but you don’t look like this if you are about to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Do not go see this shite film. Unless you are the twin sister of the menopausal woman who sat across the aisle from me sobbing uncontrollably at the plot developments so crudely manipulated that this film was in fact directed by an automated robotic arm that used to fit doors onto cars in the Rover factory before they went out of business.

It actually tells the story of what would have happened if Jesus was just a grand wise sage. Smith’s character descends unannounced into the midst of the lives of various tragic figures. None of them suffer because of their own mistakes. There is the beaten girlfriend and the blind man who likes to play piano for the kiddie choirs. And in each of these cases, Smith is able to “drastically change their circumstances” or some shite like that. All he asks is that they live an “abundant life” and don’t come searching after him. His Bible is the first thing out of this luggage every time he moves to a new motel room. He is Christ, impersonating a taxman.

The problem of course is that this is the opposite of grace. They earn it by suffering what they have not brought upon themselves. This is the Christ-story for a sinless society. Smith need not deal with anyone who is unsavoury, like the crooked administrator of an old-folks home. People like that get pushed roughly against the wall and threatened. But the poor little kid who needs a kidney… he’ll get what he needs.

This Messiah is not the sinless one that the Hebrew scriptures speak of. His is a faux-gift. The guilt-sacrifice at work here is not for the sins of others but the sins of his past. For as we realise in the opening sequences, this particular saviour has failed to save those he hurt. Driven by guilt and narcissism, he isolates himself, abandons his life and offers up his body as an atoning sacrifice for that one fateful night.

This movie is so awful that it descends to running through the rain, it sinks to bedding the hottie right before he dies, it has the temerity to insult us with the old if-the-dog-likes-him hints at Smith’s inherent goodness. And the only possible reason you would go see it is to have a fresh perspective on why a Christianity where the Christ doesn’t rise is a nightmare, a get-what-you-deserve universe for the winners in the big game of life and a message of hopelessness for the rest of us.

Or maybe I was just all intellectually on edge from overwork.

Your Correspondent, Doesn’t think movies that target teenaged girls should feature elaborate and glamourously shot scenes of suicide