“A Small Act” is a documentary attempting to accomplish no small feat. It does so with no attempt to hide its agenda nor any conceit towards compromising function for form. Make no mistake, Jennifer Arnold’s tearjerking tale has a singular purpose: to spread kindness like a zombie apocalypse — but, you know, the type of zombies who eat social injustice instead of brains.

Although “A Small Act” often feels single minded due to its altruistic machinations, an eclectic ensemble and high production values make the doc seem greater than the sum of its parts.

Arnold starts with the story of Chris Mburu, a Kenyan alumni of Harvard Law school, and Hilde Back, the childhood benefactor who made Mburu’s rags-to-U.N. global coordinator story financially possible. Arnold dovetails the two unlikely protagonists like a third world remix of The Blind Side.

Back, a Swedish refugee of Holocaust victims spent her middle aged years donating monthly sums to sponsor a faceless African child — Mburu — like so many other Western well-wishers.

Unbeknownst to Back, Mburu, who like most recipients of aid never met his good samaritan, ended up in Geneva after attending Harvard on a Fulbright scholarship. Eventually, he started his own scholarship for underprivileged Kenyan kids who couldn’t afford secondary school. In honour of Back, he named his fund after her despite never having met or seen his self proclaimed “guardian angel”.

Mburu eventually tracks Back down and the audience is treated to the cliched (yet frankly, effective) sight of a beaming young Kenyan man embracing a tiny old Jewish senior citizen as if she were his long lost mother. At one point, Mburu even gives Bank a Harvard Mom sweatshirt for her birthday during a poignant and hilarious party attended by a gaggle of likewise endearing granny gal pals (we get it — old people are cute, happy Kenyan dudes are endearing — win win!).

The real heart of Arnold’s film however takes place not in Geneva but the home Mburu left behind in central Kenya. Not much has changed since Mburu’s childhood, and kids still regularly fall by the wayside of education due to the prohibitive costs of schooling and an entrenched cultural attitude of nihilism. Is this defeatism a self-fulfilling prophesy? Arnold seems to be asking the audience. Alas, this is a rhetorical question. The answer is no — if you would just stop being such a tightwad.

But I digress. Here in rural Africa we meet Kimani, Ruth and Caroline, three primary school children in the same public school class. The three youngsters are the top academic achievers in their class and all three aspire for a high-school educated future as a means to escape poverty. Unfortunately, all three children are crushingly poor and, without financial aid, seem destined to a life of picking coffee beans or worse, although we are never really told what “worse” entails.

The rest of the film dramatizes the intense pressure the children have in achieving their goals, heightened by the darwinian nature of their predicament and a surrounding cauldron of political uncertainty. The kids take a single final primary school exam with their scholarship chances hinging on the balance of their mark. For all intents and purposes, only the top percentile of exam takers will get to continue in their studies. The rest… well, sorry you live in Kenya!

Essentially, in its latter half “A Small Act” devolves into so many dramas about under privileged kids beating the odds and breaking a cycle of cultural malaise (see: “Dangerous Minds”, “Finding Forrester”, the aforementioned Blind Side). I won’t get into the racially dogmatic sandbox this documentary seems to play in, but trust me, it’s there.

As a result, the ultimate fates of the three children are predictable, and at times the characters in “A Small Act” seem marginalized by the greater social issues Arnold is using them in her film to highlight.

Despite all the cliches however, and the jaded cynicism of North American audience donor fatigue, Arnold’s lens does manage to capture pathos in her three young dreamers made possible perhaps only by virtue of her medium.

One realizes that behind all the rehashed books, World Vision informercials, spammish e-mail chains and Hollywood dramatizations of needy upstart children, there are, you know, real kids out there. And indeed, this may be the greatest achievement of “A Small Act” and the ultimate goal of every documentary — telling the same story but successfully reminding you the stakes are real.

As sick as the audience might be of this plot, when the realization finally hits that this is a documentary and not a movie; when it dawns that the pressures foisted on these children are all too real; the maw of hopelessness they face not just a fictionalized construct; the tears silently streaming down the faces of the children on screen finally hit their mark.

Yes, “A Small Act” is manipulative and derivative and I have no doubt many will be nonplussed about the par-for-the-course altruism it extolls. Regardless, I think it’s fair to say that this is an example where you’d be hard pressed to not want the ends to justify the means.

Thank the gods for creating whatever force brought normalcy and balance back to Hollywood by nominating Sandra Bullock for the worst actress category at the 30th annual Razzie Awards, because her whole Oscar nod was really starting to make me feel like I was in some sort of bizarro world.

Although I hear she’s pretty good in The Blind Side, which I haven’t seen but I believe she plays an annoying, tom boyish awkward gal who gets a crazy makeover and wins a beauty contest, makes out with Keanu Reeves, inspires a homeless boy to become a first overall NFL draft pick by showing him her mother’s scrapbook of pictures documenting the crazy antics of the “ya ya” sisterhood, all while not traveling below 80 MPH on a city bus full of people. Then she does it all again on a cruise ship. It sounds like a whirlwind of a ride, and the role definitely plays to all of Bullock’s strengths (mostly just that knee slapping trip scene in Miss Congeniality), so she actually has a chance of winning it.

Plus, Hollywood loves a good comeback story when it doesn’t involve Mickey Rourke, and if your two previous movies were All about Steve and The Proposal, then an Oscar contending movie is definitely considered a comeback.

Speaking of All about Steve, this fine piece of work is what garnered Bullock the Razzie nod, not only restoring the crucial spiritual balance that keeps the tectonic plates from shifting and swallowing up Hollywood in a pit of fire and melted collagen, but also gives her the chance, as the Razzie press release reads, of “pull[ing] off the unprecedented feat of “winning” a Razzie one day before winning an Oscar.”

Oh ya, there were some other nominations as well. Vote for Bullock!

Worst Picture
All About Steve
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Land of The Lost
Old Dogs
Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen

Worst Actor
All Three Jonas Brothers, Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience
Will Ferrell, Land of the Lost
Steve Martin, Pink Panther 2
Eddie Murphy, Imagine That
John Travolta, Old Dogs

Worst Actress
Beyonce, Obsessed
Sandra Bullock, All About Steve
Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana: The Movie
Megan Fox, Jennifers Body and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Sarah Jessica Parker, Did You Hear About The Morgans?

Worst Supporting Actor
Billy Ray Cyrus, Hannah Montana: The Movie
Hugh Hefner (as Himself), Miss March
Robert Pattinson, Twilight Saga: New Moon
Jorma Taccone (as Cha-Ka), Land of the Lost
Marlon Wayans, G.I. Joe

Worst Screen Couple of 2009
Any Two (or More) Jonas Brothers, Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience
Sandra Bullock & Bradley Cooper, All About Steve
Will Ferrell & Any Co-Star, Creature or Comic Riff, Land of the Lost
Shia LaBeouf & EITHER Megan Fox OR Any Transformer, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Kristen Stewart & EITHER Robert Pattinson OR Taylor Whatz-His-Fang, Twilight Saga: New Moon

Worst Supporting Actress
Candice Bergen, Bride Wars
Ali Larter, Obsessed
Sienna Miller, G.I. Joe
Kelly Preston, Old Dogs
Julie White (as Mom), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Land of The Lost
Pink Panther 2
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Twilight Saga: New Moon

Worst Director
Michael Bay, Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen
Walt Becker, Old Dogs
Brad Silberling, Land of the Lost
Stephen Sommers, G.I. Joe
Phil Traill, All About Steve

Thoughts on the list, who’s missing, who deserves to win? Leave your answers in the comment section.