Rating: 
Summary: Inarritu Excels
Review: Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu received an Academy Award nomination for his first film, Amores Perros, in which three short stories were linked by a devastating road accident. Once again, with "21 Grams", like the first film written by Guillermo Arriaga, several lives are linked by a devastating accident. Here though the stories of the individual characters are much more interconnected than they were in the previous film.Who are those characters? Well there's Sean Penn as college professor Paul Rivers, who is suffering from heart failure and will soon die unless a heart transplant can be found. There's the professor's wife Mary (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) who has problems conceiving, but who wants to have an operation so she can conceive his child by artificial insemination if he does die. Cristina Peck (Naomi Watts) is a woman who was previously addicted to drugs but who's managed to put her life in order since marrying architect Michael (Danny Huston) and giving birth to two daughters. And there are the ex-convict Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro) and his wife Marianne (Melissa Leo). Jack has found religion, and his new sense of belief is helping him to go straight and raise their two children, even if it does at times have a less than positive effect on his parenting skills. All these are fragile lives, and all of these main characters are walking on thin ice. Some are more aware of it than others until a tragic accident makes it all too clear to everyone just how thin that ice is. It also connects them all in new and even tragic ways. I really don't want to give too much of the plot away, because piecing it together is much of the joy of the film. It's also much of the challenge, because - as with Amores Perros - Inarritu doesn't present the story in chronological order. The first image we see is Paul naked on the bed and watching Christina as she sleeps. Chronologically this occurs long after the accident that brings them together. Then we move on to sequences in which he is near to death, then apparently healthier, then wandering hopelessly and breathlessly in a desert-like landscape with a gun in his hand. At times, you have little more to guide you with regard to the chronology than the physical characteristics of the characters, including facial hair. As with Amores Perros, Inarritu once again adopts a deliberately grainy and unglamorous shooting style, which is - as before - provided by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. You don't appear in an Inarritu film if you have a trace of physical vanity. Naomi Watts looked glamorous and stunning in "Mulholland Drive". In 21 Grams no one gets that chance. Make-up is minimal, lighting is often much less than flattering. In some ways I preferred "21 Grams" to "Pulp Fiction", which also consisted of short stories put together out of chronological order. One reason for that preference was the grungier reality of Inarritu's visuals, and the fact that they contrasted in interesting ways with the overall complexity of the story. Sometimes - it has to be said - in both films, the anti-chronological structure, the grungy cinematography, and the excellence of the performances, does cover what could easily be melodramatic excess. If the story of "21 Grams" were told straightforwardly with less powerful actors, it could almost be an over the top TV soap-opera. The performances are a large part of what makes the film so stunning. All of the main actors excel. Several of them won awards at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival - Sean Penn receiving Best Actor, and Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts receiving the Audience Awards for Best Actor and Actress. Penn gives a very different performance here than he did in "Mystic River", although this film contains some elements of that one, and even of "The Crossing Guard" and "In the Bedroom". Naomi Watts has been nominated for a thoroughly deserved Academy Award (which she probably won't get) for Best Actress, and del Toro nominated for Best Supporting Actor. "21 Grams" also contains a powerful cameo from Clea DuVall as Christina's younger sister. So why is it called 21 Grams? Well that's said by some to be the weight of the human soul. Inarritu is examining what happens to individuals when confronted by events beyond their control, and asking questions about birth, love, death and religion. It's a gripping film and one with strong themes. Well worth a viewing, but I warn you that it does demand active participation on the part of the viewer.
Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Emotional Film
Review: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro all give heart-renching performances in 21 grams. It is also interesting to me to see Benicio Del Toro's character, a born-again christian, portrayed in a secular film. His religious character goes through a terrible ordeal, and it is deeply moving.
The way the scenes are out of sequence, does get confusing and that is my only complaint. All the acting performances are outstanding.
Rating: 
Summary: An intense emotional rollercoaster ride
Review: 2003 has definitely been Sean Penn's year. He was in two of the best dramas that I had seen on the big screen in years, "Mystic River" and "21 Grams". I recently saw "21 Grams" this weekend. I had been dying to see it because of the critical acclaim over the performances from Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, and Benicio Del Toro. At first I wasn't planning on seeing it because I kept seeing the trailer for it in the theatre and Sean Penn's dialogue about losing 21 grams when you die got on my nerves. Needless to say I was eating crow after I just saw the film. Like "Mystic River", "21 Grams" is a very bleak, and devastatingly emotional film. "21 Grams" should have been nominated for best picture instead of "Master and Commander" (overblown epic) or "Seabiscuit" (oversentimental flick) in my opinion. Sean Penn plays a mathematics professor Paul Rivers. He has a heart condition that is slowly killing him. Despite that, he continually smokes like a chimmney. His marriage to Mary (actress Charlotte Gainsbourg) is shaky at best. I thought Charlotte Gainsbourg was quite good as Mary, if not overlooked. It was a quiet yet emotional performance. To Mary, Paul was her achilles' heel while cigarettes were Paul's drug of choice. Naomi Watts puts in an equally devastating performance in this film as Christina Peck, the housewife/recovering addict who loses her family in one day. If Charlie Theron doesn't win the Oscar, then I hope Naomi wins the Oscar for Best Actress. She was absolutely wonderful in the film. The two highlights of the film for me were the performances by Benecio Del Toro as Jack Jordan and former "Homicide" actress Melissa Leo. Those two actors made the film for me. Jack was such an interesting character. He was an ex-con who turned to Jesus yet continually found himself returning to his violent ways. Melissa played Jack's long-suffering wife. Her performance was just as good as Naomi Watts. As much as she loved her husband, she was tired of the constant torture he inflicts on himself especially the guilt of the act of committing vehicular homicide. A friend of mine said she didn't want to see this film because it was a drug movie. Although there are drugs in the film, they are not the centerpiece of the film. Love, redemption, and forgiveness is what "21 Grams" is about. Granted it is bleak and depressing but in the end what it boils down to is love, redemption, and forgiveness. My only flaw with the film was the way it was edited. It took me a few minutes to realize that the film was edited to show what lead up to each scene. It was a bit confusing but I guess it made the film more interesting. Nevertheless, "21 Grams" is evidence that human emotions makes for good drama.
Rating:
Summary: So Mortal Be
Review: There are some movies that may not be pleasant to watch, but are very well made & should be experienced regardless.
Many movies would fall under that category, "The Sweet Hereafter" & "Jacob's Ladder" come to mind. "21 Grams" is a story of severe emotional weight.
The characters are confused, lost & grief stricken.
For these characters, as in reality, life-altering tragedy strikes like blind lightning. No cues, no heads-up or "brace yourself"...something unexpected & terrible happens, punching a hole into life, leaving people scrambling to make sense of their loss or guilt & fill that inner void with something, anything. This is what good movie making should do; entertain while compelling the viwer to examine & question.
21 Grams accomplishes this more than effectively. The story has the sort of resonating impact that any parent inherently feels when they hear a tragic 'news' story involving the loss of a child..people sympathize, but there's always that illusory membrane of disconnect; bad things happen to other people, not to me. 21 Grams takes away that necessary disconnect from the viewer & gives you a gutwrenching look into several lives woven together by happenstance? fate? divine intervention?..we all subjectively must decide. We all hope to remain strangers to firsthand experience with emotional pain & soul sickness...yet, these aspects of ourselves & our existence are real; unfortunate events do occur, wrong choices are made, & as with any human conflict/misery, the characters in 21 Grams are left attempting to piece together the mysterious reasons for the events that have left their lives in ruins. Blame the other guy? Blame yourself? Blame God?
21 Grams is such a powerful movie because it delves into many things we'd rather not think about. This movie shows how there are usually no clear right or wrong conclusions to be reached, only choices to be made & consequences to live with.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful and haunting.
Review: 21 Grams is a tour the force of a movie that packs such an emotional wallop that it became a real roller coaster for me to sit through. Sean Pean, Naomi Watts, and Benicio Del Toro all give great and haunting performances, and Director Alejandro González Iñárritu makes the movie in such away that for the viewer to full grasps the whole story in non liner way in order to get the full effect of the tragedies in these peoples lives, and to experience the pain and sobriety of the human contusion. This is one powerful and haunting movie that will stay with you right after you see it. .
Rating:
Summary: Where is the respect?
Review: I usually don't write reviews, for no reason imparticular I just seem to never write any. After reading some of the reviews for 21 Grams I knew now was the time. The film comes to us from Alejandro González Iñárritu, the same director that brought the excellent and emotional attack of Amores Perros. The film follows the lives of three indiviuals an ex-con-turned-Born Again Christian (the intense Benecio Del Toro) a profressor in search of a heart transplant (the heartbreaking Sean Penn) and an ex-addict-turned-mother. The story is told with in a scattered pattern with the beginning, middle and end all intertwined. This format can be confusing and possibly irritating if you let it get the best of you. But I found that the performances really compensate for the setback. Penn makes you understand the pain that he is enduring and how much he just wants to be normal again. Del Toro breaks your heart in almost every scene. It seems that no matter what he tries to do to follow Christ there is always something there that destroys his every intentions. Watts, well what can I say, she is amazing. She displays every single emotion one person caan go through and each one comes across in it's most full form. We feel for her at every turn and understand why she might feel forced to degress to her past ways. Overall the movie is and emotional odyssey into the darkest depths of our beings. Maybe I'm being a little bit pretentious here but this is one of the most moving and thought provoking movies I've seen in a long time. I highly recommend seeing it.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent performances
Review: At the core of "21 Grams" is a story of three human beings who are facing the most horrifying and difficult situations a human being could possibly face. To portray these characters, the powers that be recruited three of the finest film actors working today, as well a talented director smart enough to get out of their way. The result is (not surprisingly) a powerful, gripping film. This film is not easy to watch. These characters are going through hell. Naomi Watts portrays a grief-stricken woman whose husband and two daughters are all killed in a hit-and-run. Sean Penn plays the heart-transplant patient who receives her husband's heart, and finds hiimself living with a strange combination of gratitude, guilt and terror. Benecio Del Toro is the born-again Christian and former convict who accidently killed the family, and is tormented by guilt and rage. Watching Watts, Penn, and Toro tackle these characters is truly magnificent, but also heartwrenching. Rage, guilt, heartbreak, suffering, need, empathy, fear, hatred, love, lust, hope ... these characters showcase humanity at its most raw. There seems to be some debate about the affectiveness of the non-linear way their stories are told, but I thought it worked beautifully. All in all, a terrific film.
Rating: 
Summary: Welcome to Hollywood!
Review: This film depicts death, faith, and revenge, but does little to unravel the complexities of these themes. It is as if the film-makers recognise these to be 'profound' topics, sturdy enough to provide pivots upon which a plot might turn, but have not thought about their subjects deeply - certainly not deeply enough to open them up for an audience's meditation.
*
The technique of splintering a plot into a chronological puzzle is ably handled in the first hour. By exploiting our hunger for a coherent narrative, the film draws one in - however, after being asked to do some work, a viewer expects a commensurable reward, in terms of character development or surprise in plot structure or depth of ideas, and here the film disappoints. The plot relies on chance, the characters border on the cliched, and the ideas own a superficial suggestiveness without deeper riches. So the last hour becomes tedious, and with the splintering over, the linear plot is revealed as poorly motivated in parts.
*
The cinematic effects are skilled, at times spectacular, but as they do not subserve the demands of the story, they draw attention to themselves, in a showy, at times, irritating manner. The director seems at pains to prove his own worth.
*
The acting has been widely praised, and in a sense it is deserving. The director's intentions appear admirably fulfilled, and the actors display a wide range of emotions - if only these intentions had been better thought through, then the emotions might well have resonated more lastingly. As it is, the film is more a spectacle than a meditation, an entertainment rather than art, and its detail is quickly forgotten.
*
Make no mistake, this is not the work of a major director. At best, Inarritu might stand alongside Tarantino. He has aspired to work with the American studios and has succeeded in measuring up to their standards.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Worst Movies of the Year
Review: 21 grams had to have been THE WORST theater experience of my life. This was a movie that had no plot, no point to it, and to make up for it, the director decided to mix up the order of events so it would be deemed as provocative and clever. I pity Sean Penn and del Toro, two high caliber actors, for having to try to make this train wreck work. Unlike most movies, where you can at least sympathize with the characters, I could not for this movie - I basically wanted them all to either die or leave the screen. You are not allowed to get to know the characters intimately enough to find anything redeeming about them. I guess that's where my biggest complaint lies; there's nothing redeeming about this film, it's just a series of events that poorly tie in at the end to produce a film with no message. It's pointless, it's garbage. NEVER SEE THIS FILM!!! Do not buy into this hype. Anyone who says he likes this film is only trying to act "with it." Apparently disjointed garbage is touted nowadays.
Rating: 
Summary: just what i expected from gonzalez iñarritu
Review: this just shows that this guy doesnt have any imagination left on his head. Its the same plot as Amorres Perros, an excellent movie, wich impressed me back then, but the same thing again? come on! wheres the creativity? even the same car crash scene, is where the 3 stories collide, i would recommend you to see Magnolia or Amores Perros, but try to avoid 21 grams at all costs.
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