The Ultimate Gift (2007)
32 %
Reviews Counted: 56 Fresh: 18 Rotten:38 Average Rating: 5.1/10
Consensus:
Though The Ultimate Gift avoids religious speechifying like other Fox Faith films, it's dramatically inert with flat direction.
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Theatrical Release: Mar 9, 2007 Wide
Box Office: $3,178,843
Synopsis: The videotaped will of deceased billionaire Red Stevens (James Garner) includes the "ultimate gift" for his spoiled, sullen grandson Jason (Drew Fuller). A series of tasks meant to turn Jason from a hedonistic jerk into a compassionate human being is included in the will, but whether that's... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Drew Fuller, James Garner, Ali Hillis, Abigail Breslin, Brian Dennehy
Director: Michael O. Sajbel
Screenwriter: Cheryl McKay
Producer: Rick Eldridge, John Shepherd
Composer: Mark McKenzie
Screenwriter: Cheryl McKay
Producer: Rick Eldridge, John Shepherd
Composer: Mark McKenzie
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Reviews
Comment
This new film moves along smoothly until Grandpa's most preposterous mission - which needlessly drags out the movie -- takes Jason to a severely caricatured Ecuador.
08/22/07
Top Critic
I haven't even read the book, and I know it has to be better than the movie.
04/17/07
A parabolic film about one selfish young man's spiritual transformation.
03/30/07
I think urban sophisticates can be people of faith who want to see movies, occasionally, that don’t have the four-letter words, and I do embrace religion, but I think they have to be better than this.
03/20/07
Top Critic
The film squeaks by on a combination of reliable old pros...and appealing newcomers...
03/19/07
The result is a deep desire for those Hollywood execs to remember that Christian doesn’t have to equal brain-dead.
03/18/07
Christian charity, in this movie, seems like a side-effect of capitalism.
03/17/07
Top Critic
Veterans Garner and Brian Dennehy give convincing professional performances here, but Fuller is bland.
03/17/07
If you missed the money-isn’t-everything message, an end-credits recap outlines the story’s salient points -- if you’d known, you could’ve skipped the rest.
03/17/07
[James] Garner is good, and so is Brian Dennehy as a crusty ranch owner; Abigail Breslin, playing a leukemia patient, demonstrates that she was not a one-note wonder in Little Miss Sunshine.
03/15/07
Pretty much what one would expect: a sincere story of redemption delivered with all the low-key execution of one of those Hallmark-backed TV movies of the week.
03/15/07
The Ultimate Gift is kind of like a feel-good Saw for churchgoers, minus the sadistic games of death.
03/14/07
Top Critic
Wholesome and inspirational, it preaches a simplistic "prosperity gospel."
03/11/07
It is message filmmaking so blunt you might be tempted to root for the parasitic reprobate over the saintly old man, and that's just not right.
03/09/07
If The Ultimate Gift really wanted to embrace a powerful Christian message, it would've made Jason's ordeal truly threatening and genuinely transformative.
03/09/07
If anything, the film's uplifting moral tone seems more in line with a Frank Capra flick than a cinematic sermon.
03/09/07
It does telegraph its sentiments with all the subtlety of a greeting card.
03/09/07
Related Forums
An altogether pleasant and mediocre film.
by: Metafact 12/27/07
by: Metafact 12/27/07
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