Star rating: ***
Dir: Gabriele Muccino
With: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Barry Pepper, Woody Harrelson

Will Smith's latest outing with Italian director Gabriele Muccino, of The Pursuit of Happyness fame, stands or falls on the truth behind the mystery driving it. But while hopeless romantics may tearfully rejoice at the sentimental payoff, most viewers may find themselves lamenting yet another film that falls at the final hurdle.

Ben Thomas (Smith) is a man living on the edge. Distraught by the repercussions of a tragedy he feels responsible for, he has hatched a plan to change the lives of seven strangers for the better, only to find himself falling in love with a beautiful woman (Rosario Dawson) in the process.

Muccino's film works best when keeping viewers in the dark. It opens with Smith's character making a phone call to report his own impending suicide, and then charts the events that took him to that point. En route, Muccino makes good use of a fractured narrative to keep the audience guessing and is rewarded with some fine performances.

Smith, in particular, shines as the enigmatic Thomas - an IRS agent with a hidden power to change lives for the better, but who hides his own dark secret. He expertly conveys a mixture of emotions without ever becoming too showy, neatly offsetting his personal quest for redemption with random acts of kindness. But is he all that he seems? Dawson, too, is better than she's ever been as his love interest, a woman in search of her own rescue for very different reasons.

The big reveal, when Thomas's grand plan is set into play, is designed to tug at the heart-strings and isn't without emotion. But it's overdone, not entirely satisfying and lacks any believable logic. As is so often the case with films nowadays, the journey is much more enjoyable than the destination.