Jim Stovall - Ultimate Gift

Right around the time Talladega Nights was filmed near me, "The Ultimate Gift" was also being filmed. I was lucky enough to be an extra in Talladega Nights, but had used all of my paid time off so I could not again do it for "The Ultimate Gift." The Ultimate Gift for the most part is filmed and takes place in Charlotte.

The movie stars James Garner, Drew Fuller, Lee Merriwether and Bill Cobbs, but was still not a release from a major studio. The film is about James Garner's character "Red" Stevens, a billionaire oil tycoon who dies and posthumously via a video recording doles out his inheritance. Everyone gets in line for their share and the rich boy slacker Jason doesn't expect anything. However, Red and his living friend/business partner (Cobbs) tell him that he must pass a series of tests in order to claim his inheritance. There are 12 of these challenges which are each designed to teach Jason some of the values of life which he has not experienced. So as not to get too detailed and spoil the movie, I will not list all dozen challenges nor get too detailed with them.

Jason quickly finds out who his true friends are and what it is like to attempt to live without money. He must find a new true friend as one of the challenges and manages to do so with a little girl. Jason begins to see the positive things in life as well as some of the negative ones as each challenge unfolds.

Throughout the series of challenges, the movie shows true friendship, survival, romance, philanthropy and many more values.

The movie ends on a very positive note as well. I would really like to divulge more details, but I cannot because anything more would spoil some of the plot. I will say that it reminded me of a serious version of "Brewster's Millions" with Richard Pryor from the 80s somewhat. It was also quite nice to see the things I see every day in another movie as so many have been filmed here recently.