As I began watching The Ultimate Gift, I had a feeling I was watching a remake of the Richard Pryor comedy Brewster’s Millions, in which Pryor’s minor-league pitcher must waste thirty million dollars in thirty days in order to gain his true inheritance of three hundred million dollars. Both films open with the death of a multi-billionaire, and both of the departed prepared their wills on video—or DVD in this case—to present to their unsuspecting heirs.

“You don’t begin to live until you’ve lost everything,” says Red Stevens, the billionaire in The Ultimate Gift. Unlike Monty Brewster, however, Red’s grandson Jason doesn’t have to give away everything he owns, because it is just taken from him. Jason is a spoiled twenty-something with a trust fund, who has never worked a day in his life.

Still, Red always saw something in Jason. He saw the fire—the same fire he saw in his son, Jason’s father, who died when Jason was just a boy. This is why Red is bequeathing Jason what he calls “the ultimate gift,” while stiffing—as they see it—the rest of his money-hungry heirs. Jason doesn’t just receive this gift, however. He has to work for it.

Red has set up a series of gifts, which basically amounts to a series of challenges Jason must complete in order to receive the ultimate gift. Jason is first sent to the Texas ranch of his grandfather’s former partner Gus where he will do, in his words, slave labor. Jason believes that when he finishes this work, he will receive his gift. However, he doesn’t realize that Red considers the work a gift in itself, and it is only the beginning.

Jason returns home to find his personal possessions gone, his bank account frozen, and, as a result, an absence of friends—that is, until he meets Emily, a gloomy and out-spoken young girl played by the recently-anointed Oscar-nominee Abigail Breslin. With the help of Emily and her broke, single mother Alexia, Jason will soon discover exactly what his grandfather meant by the ultimate gift.

The Ultimate Gift, with it’s in-your-face life lessons and relatively modest production values—not to mention a child dying of leukemia—felt more like an after school special than a theatrical feature film. Nevertheless, I enjoyed every bit of it.

Despite its relatively predictable and seemingly familiar plot, it is quite entertaining. It’s funny, touching and inspirational. As a result, the film earned the Crystal Heart Award at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis, a festival that attempts “to recognize and honor filmmakers whose work explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.”

The problem that does arise with the film is that it is so blatantly a message movie. Usually, I find that if a film gets its message across in more subtle ways rather than simply pounding it into our brains, it tends to be more effective. I had a similar problem with Babel. Michael Sajbel, director of The Ultimate Gift, tries so hard to get his message across that he even uses clips in the closing credits to reinforce Jason’s various “gifts” (the gift of work, friends, learning, money, etc.), just in case we missed them during the actual film.

Although there are a few well-known faces—James Garner as Red, Brian Dennehy as Gus, and Bill Cobbs—for the most part the movie relies on a relative unknown, Drew Fuller, to carry the load of the film. A veteran of such television series as Charmed and The O.C., Fuller is in nearly every scene, and has to display a wide range of emotions as well as a significant character arc. For the most part, he pulls it off nicely. He is especially effective in scenes with Breslin, who proves that even when she is not Little Miss Sunshine, she can still be quite delightful.

So in the end, The Ultimate Gift proved to be nothing like Brewster’s Millions, relying more on its message than on the comic antics of Pryor and John Candy to make its point. It’s a good message, one worth focusing on—and not just in after school specials.

The Ultimate Gift is rated PG for “thematic elements, some violence and language.” The parental guidance is appropriate if for nothing else than a somewhat disturbing kidnapping scene. But the film is designed to be family-friendly.

Courtesy of a national publicist, Jeff viewed a promotional screener of The Ultimate Gift.