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Okay, let's see if I got this straight...the assassination target is a Serbian general attacking Muslim villages, but the cars all have Hungarian plates, and the locals all speak Hungarian, not any Slavic language. Okay, we'll suspend our disbelief that there are any Muslim villages in Hungary. But if Serbia were attacking Hungary, a NATO member, the response of the West would be something more than sending over a couple of guys who look like anything but Eastern Europeans. NATO is a mutual defense pact that comes to the defense of any member (well, NATO gets involved with other adventures, too, but that's a different debate).

So we find out that there are opposition leaders being held without charges in prison. Wonder whether the European Union knew about this when it invited Hungary to be a candidate for EU membership?

In any case, before Hungary joins the EU, it'll definitely have to do something about its product safety standards, particularly the tendency of every vehicle to explode into an enormous fireball when crashed, shot, bumped, or if its doors are slammed too hard. How big a fireball would an exploding Trabant be able to produce anyway, with its feeble East German two-stroke engine that's comparable to a lawnmower?

Did anyone notice that our heroes were dropped off by a helicopter marked "SFOR", but picked up by an unmarked helicopter? One might assume there was an enormous diplomatic outcry when the Bosnia-based UN Stabilization Force (SFOR) exceeded its mandate by carrying out a mission that took it over Croatian or Serbian territory and into Hungary, so when they made the trip again, SFOR removed all the identifying details. Either that or the film's continuity person fell asleep on the job.

And what was up with the heroes' desperate dash for "the border"? If they were in Hungary, they were safe. If they were dashing for the Croatian or Romanian borders, they'd be safe there too. But since they were in a place where villages were being attacked by Serbia, they were presumably close to the Serbian border. Why on earth would they want to reach the Serbian border? Shouldn't they be sitting tight, safe in Hungary, waiting for the NATO airstrikes to end the little Serbian incursion into Hungary?

And who were the bad guys, anyway? Invading Serbian troops who can somehow move freely around the streets of Hungarian cities, commandeering police cars without resistance, conducting shootouts on the street without any protest from Hungarians?

If anyone out there considering making "Sniper 3," please pick up a world atlas and read a few newspapers before you write the script!

Did Helen Hunt really win an Oscar not too long ago? I think she's fallen into the Cuba Gooding Jr. trap of reprising the Oscar-winning performance over and over, not seeming to notice that the first movie has ended. If she plays one more struggling single mom with a heart of gold, I'm going to have to add her to the short list of Actors To Avoid At All Costs (which currently includes Robin Williams, Melanie Griffith, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Whoopi Goldberg). It's a drastic step to take, Ms. Hunt...please don't make me do it.

"Pay It Forward" is a relentlessly manipulative, mawkish soap opera. Everything about it is unrealistic, from guzzling vodka straight from a bottle hidden in the light fixture (doesn't it get hot?), to high-security schools with metal detectors that don't have any security guards to intervene when kids are being beaten, from a Hollywood-style homeless-people landscape of burning trash barrels and shuffling winos, to a "Field of Dreams"-like line of thousands of car headlights making a pilgrimage toward a suburban house (where will they all park?).

I didn't believe anything about this movie, not for a second. But I tried...I really WANTED to believe in the "pay it forward" idea, in the inherent altruism of man. But "Pay It Forward" kept reminding me that it's not the concept that matters, but the ability of the marketing people can try to pack fannies into theater seats. Put together a few off-the-shelf plot ideas--a kid plays matchmaker, emotionally damaged adults find love, bullies threaten the nice kids, alcohol is evil--and wait for the box office receipts to roll in.

How easy is it to track down a homeless person in another city, based on a vague description given by a stranger? How often do kids get killed in YOUR school? Did Mom get fired from her job that required her to wear the blue wig at the beginning of the movie, or was her I-just-found-a-new-job scene left on the cutting room floor? Isn't it convenient that Jon Bon Jovi shows up at exactly the time the plot requires a relationship crisis?

"Pay It Forward" is a bad, bad movie. Give it a wide berth.