Seven Pounds (Gabriele Muccino, 2008)

The Pursuit of Happyness director Muccino is reunited with Will Smith for a weepy in which Smith plays a character with elements by now thoroughly familiar not just from his drama roles, but even his action ones all the way through to I Am Legend or I, Robot: a sensitive loner carrying serious baggage trying to put things right. Here, he's seeking redemption for having caused the death of his fiancee and six other people in an accident, and poses as an IRS agent to find seriously ill people and start donating parts of his body to fix them. It could be painfully mawkish, not least in the button-pressingly soulful romance he develops with one of the dying, but Smith is actually very good at this by now and Muccino handles the sentiment just about the right side of wanton tear-jerking.

5/10