Drew Fuller and Oscar-nominee Abigail Breslin star in The Ultimate Gift.

20th Century Fox

The Ultimate Gift is an uplifting, feel-good, inspirational movie that’s almost guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of the audience.

It has a strong cast that includes such stalwarts as James Garner, Lee Meriwether, Bill Cobbs and Brian Dennehy, plus recent 10-year-old Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin of Little Miss Sunshine. It has solid production values that include a trek into the Andean mountains of Ecuador where there are unexpected thrills.

But it also has the kind of tear-stained sidebar story that seems melodramatically contrived and seems destined for only a brief stop in theaters before it finds its rightful place on the Hallmark Channel.

The Ultimate Gift is based on Jim Stovall’s multi-million best seller about a spoiled young rich man Jason Stevens (Drew Fuller) who, although long estranged from his billionaire grandfather (Garner) since his father’s mysterious death, is left a strange legacy by the old man. He’s sent out by his grandpa’s longtime friend and lawyer (Cobbs) on a step-by-step mission that involves 12 “gifts.” Complete all 12 projects, he’s told, and he will gain “the ultimate gift.” The lawyer doesn’t think this young man, “who has no concept of the value of money,” according to his late grandpa, will succeed. But the lawyer’s glowingly warm assistant (Meriwether) is willing to give him more than the benefit of the doubt as she pulls for his success.

Garner’s deceased Red Stevens speaks to Jason via his taped will, which the young man views in sections throughout the film in the lawyer’s office or on a picture phone they’ve outfitted him with.

Jason’s first mission involves a cattle ranch owned by his grandfather’s old friend (Dennehy), putting up fence posts on the far reaches of the place. Here Jason, who has always lived off his trust fund, learns the value of work.

In coming lessons he will have all of his money and possessions taken away so that he can come to appreciate learning, love, family and philanthropy. Along the way he will dismiss his money-hungry family and befriend a poor, single mother (Ali Hillis), who has become impoverished in trying to care for her leukemia-stricken daughter, Emily (Breslin). Emily is one of those frank-speaking, wise-beyond-her-years, forthright children who are found mainly in movies and who are just this side of insufferable.

Fortunately Fuller, as the Everyman of the piece, has a good deal of charisma and good chemistry with the sympathetic Hillis as they are brought together by a hard-to-believe coincidence and go on to face seemingly unconquerable odds. This includes a trek to a tiny village in the Andean jungles of Ecuador where Jason’s grandfather has built a small library for the appreciative, book-hungry peasants in a spot near where Jason’s father died. While on his odyssey to learn how his father died, Jason is kidnapped by guerrillas for ransom, along with one of the villagers. To keep Jason’s spirits up, the man begins reading passages from Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. (I swear I am not kidding.)

The kidnapping in the jungle is the most exciting part of The Ultimate Gift whose goal, unsurprisingly, is to show how all of Jason’s labors teach him to become a better person. It’s the ultimate gift after all.

Although the plot has all the sentiments of a Christmas card greeting, director Michael O. Sajbel and the good cast create empathy for the characters as they face trials that would send most people reeling. The feel-good ending, tinged with sadness, will threaten to bring tears to even the coldest of hearts.