#1 it has to be something that really helps people
#2 something they can't do by themselves
#3 I do it for them, they do it for three other people.
When someone does you a big favor,
don't pay it back...

Everything in social studies teacher Eugene Simonet's (KEVIN SPACEY) life is in order -- every shirt, every pencil, every person in its proper place. To keep the surface placid means never having to go deeper. And no one and nothing in his life has ever asked him to.
Arlene McKinney (HELEN HUNT) is a single mother hanging on by her fingertips, working two jobs, and struggling to raise her son, Trevor (HALEY JOEL OSMENT). She is trying to give him a new life, but in her absence she is losing him.
Eugene gives Trevor's class an assignment: look at the world around you and fix what you don't like. But can you fix people?
Two-time Academy Award-winner Kevin Spacey ("American Beauty," "The Usual Suspects"), Academy Award-winner Helen Hunt ("As Good As It Gets") and Academy Award nominee Haley Joel Osment ("The Sixth Sense") star in "Pay It Forward." Warner Bros. Pictures, in association with Bel-Air Entertainment, presents the film, which is directed by MIMI LEDER ("Deep Impact") from a screenplay by LESLIE DIXON ("The Thomas Crown Affair," "Mrs. Doubtfire"), based on the novel of the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde .
The film also stars JAY MOHR ("Go," "Jerry Maguire"), JAMES CAVIEZEL ("The Thin Red Line"), JON BON JOVI ("U-571"), and legendary film and television star ANGIE DICKINSON ("Police Woman," "Ocean's Eleven"). "Pay It Forward" is produced by Bel-Air Entertainment's STEVEN REUTHER ("Pretty Woman") and Tapestry Films' PETER ABRAMS and ROBERT LEVY ("She's All That"). Executive producers are MARY McLAGLEN and JONATHAN TREISMAN. OLIVER STAPLETON ("The Cider House Rules") is the director of photography and two-time Oscar winner LESLIE DILLEY ("Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Star Wars") is the production designer. Academy Award nominee DAVID ROSENBLOOM ("The Insider") is the editor. THOMAS NEWMAN ("Erin Brockovich") composed the score.

Thursday October 26 5:23 AM ET
Leder's ``Collateral'' plans collapse
By Carl DiOrio

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Mimi Leder, who directed Warner Bros.' ``Pay It Forward,'' won't be helming DreamWorks' ``Collateral'' after all. Leder, who made her feature-directing debut in 1997 with DreamWorks' ``The Peacemaker'' couldn't reach an agreement with the studio for a production budget. The parties had been trying to reach terms since August. DreamWorks says it is moving forward in the hope of attaching a new director.
The pic centers on a Gotham cabbie who, realizing he's driving a hit man from murder to murder, becomes ``collateral'' as a witness who's forced to commit murder himself to prevent his reporting the crimes. The script was penned by Aussie scribe Stuart Beattie (``Kick''); no talent is attached. Leder is said to be looking at other projects. Beset by bad reviews, ``Pay It Forward,'' bowed last weekend at No. 4 with $9.6 million.
Reuters/Variety REUTERS



Pay It Forward
A film review by Christopher Null - Copyright © 2000 filmcritic.com

The very idea behind Pay It Forward -- that when someone does an enormous good deed for you should pay it "forward" to three other, unsuspecting persons -- requires what is described in the film as "an extreme act of faith in the goodness of people."
It's safe to say that your enjoyment of the film is bound by this same rule. Dyed-in-the-wool film critics like myself have been down this road once or twice before, and the enormous leap of faith it takes to convince oneself that, deep down, even "bad" people are good makes me want to reach for my DVD of A Clockwork Orange.
In a nutshell, Pay It Forward essentially gives us a new spin on the age-old pyramid scheme, this time with an altruistic streak. The brainchild of young Trevor McKinney (The Sixth Sense's Haley Joel Osment), the PIF scheme is hatched when his 7th grade Social Studies teacher Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey) challenges the class to come up with a plan "to change the world." While it might have been a good idea to start by trying to fix up his alcoholic, working-two-jobs, not-quite-a-hussie-but-almost mom (Helen Hunt), Trevor figures he really can change the world with his plan.
Trevor launches Pay It Forward with gusto, helping out a homeless junkie (James Cavaziel), some kid who keeps getting beat up at school, and even branching into matchmaking as he tries to set up the burn-scarred and embittered Mr. Simonet with Trevor's trollop of a mother.
It's at this point that we begin to wonder: Is Pay It Forward meant to be a love story? Well, no. Actually, it's a full-blown soap opera, complete with rank alcoholism, spousal and child abuse, drug addiction, suicide, homelessness, and everything else you get in the genre except a murderous evil twin. As you might expect, the picture is positively drowning in sentiment, to the point where it gets almost sickening.
The real driver for all this mushiness is that the film is extremely talky and, for lack of a better word, preachy. Moments of greatness are punctuated by one soliloquy after another. Sadly, this is a truly excellent story that is told with exceptionally poor ability. Set in Vegas, Pay It Forward could easily have had the power of a film like its brother-in-setting, Leaving Las Vegas, which utilized the harsh dichotomy between bright, glitzy lights and the baseness of the human condition perpetually on display there to drive its message home. But it doesn't. Pay It Forward takes the PG-13 way out and muddles itself as a film for the entire family to watch, to bond over, and to learn a thing or two about life.
To its credit, we do learn that thing or two about life from the strong moral backbone of Pay It Forward, notably the importance of taking action instead of just talking about doing something good. As a message movie, the film is competent, and indeed it probably will play well to teen audiences if they can sit through all the blah-blah-blah chattiness. But really, is it the best idea to give us the one-two acting punch of both Jon Bon Jovi and Angie Dickenson to drive the point home? Even Spacey and Hunt feel like they're trying karmically to redeem themselves for the misanthropy on display in (the far superior) American Beauty and As Good As It Gets. (For which, of course, each won an Academy Award, respectively.)
Ultimately, Pay It Forward will be 2000's take on Forrest Gump. Like Gump, Forward is utterly manipulative, a feel-so-good-you-have-to-cry movie that will divide audiences into two camps: one that is swept away by the earnestness and emotion of the story, and one that simply can't stand the sappiness.
For what it's worth, I managed to fall prey to neither side.