Rating: 
Summary: "21 Grams" of pure quality filmmaking!
Review: "They say we all loose 21 GRAMS when we die. Who will be next?" were the words creepily and sadly uterred by Sean Penn's ("Mystic River," "The Game) character, Paul, a dying math teacher, in the trailer for Focus Features' "21 Grams," a dizzying look at how a single traffic accident affects the lives of three normal, but harrowingly interesting, people, the other two being Jack, portrayed by Benicio Del Toro ("The Pledge," "Traffic"), an ex-con who was born again to the Christian ways, and Cristina (Naomi Watts, "The Ring," "Le Divorce"), a drug addict-turned-responsible mother.The film is not for the faint of the heart, for director Alejandro González Iñárritu takes you, with his camera, to the darkest spots of humanity, but the acting is so incredibly strong and the screenwriting so sharp, you can't help but be entertained and enthralled by this definitive slice-of-life drama/thriller.
Rating:
Summary: Consistently terrific, until the structure wears you down.
Review: Virtuosity occasionally has its price, and "21 Grams" pays it in full: Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's follow-up to "Amores Perros" is another powerhouse undone by a disjointed structure that props up the movie's extraordinary first hour but eventually sucks the life right out of it. As in his debut, Inarritu works from a Guillermo Arriaga script involving three characters whose lives are drastically changed by a car accident. Paul (Sean Penn) is a mathematician with a failing heart and an estranged wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who has returned for hospice care - and the chance to carry Paul's baby. Cristina (Naomi Watts) is a recovering angel dust addict with a savior husband and two daughters. And there is Jack (Benicio Del Toro, electric) a Born Again ex-con, who applies Old Testament logic to New Testament teachings, smothering his family with scripture while scolding them for their sins. Slowly, their connections reveal themselves; Inarritu presents the movie out of sequence, revealing one piece of the puzzle only to return to it again, moving freely up and down the timeline. The setup is involving, and exciting, as the pieces come together and the director somehow surprises us with events we know have already occurred: Paul is saved by chance. He seeks out Cristina, whose husband was the heart donor. Later, they fall in love, and want revenge against Jack, who drove the truck that killed Cristina's husband and two daughters. Inarritu makes a haunting commentary of the nature of circumstance and consequence, chance and punishment. At one point Jack makes a choice, then Paul makes a choice, and these choices affect Cristina, driven more by guilt than her own free will. Inarritu errs by revealing the movie's ending at the beginning. Gutty, but it's too easy to guess at just how the three wind up in Paul's blue Saturn, speeding toward the hospital. Later, when Paul confronts Jack in the desert, we know how the scene will conclude, and yet Inarritu feels the need to shoot it as if we wouldn't. "21 Grams" is indeed a jigsaw puzzle, with Arriaga, the screenwriter, leaving the least interesting pieces to plug in last. The movie's second half in punctuated by several long conversations - Watts loses it in one, while another leads to a slow, sad sexual encounter - the anti-climax, and explanation of the movie's title that never quite hits home. Inarritu fattens up his movie by presenting each character with an extended family with off which to play; in Cristina's case, her father and sister are there at the funeral, but they disappear as Cristina plunges back into addiction. Unlikely. Penn and Watts get the headline roles, but neither present the complexities of Del Toro, whose approach to religion is brutal, yet oddly sensible; the movie criticizes Christianity by proving, to a fierce extent, that it is impossible to "turn the other cheek." Del Toro is largely in another movie and Inarritu eventually relegates him to the role of cipher, but the movie's tone poem of death is right there, in the actor's eyes, as he sits in prison, renouncing Jesus. It's a terrific performance. Penn is again excellent as a conflicted, weak man attuned to, and at peace with, his own mortality. His heart is not in vengeance, or much else, aside from offering Cristina some element of comfort. To contrast Paul, essentially the walking dead, to Penn's character in "Mystic River" cements the actor's range. There is no note of varying body language the man cannot affect. Watts, however, is disappointing. Stuck with a weepy character of total despair and little else, Cristina breaks down, snorts lines, strips naked and Watts marches on dutifully in what's basically a red-eyed star turn. Compare her work to that of Jennifer Connelly in "The House of Sand and Fog" and the role and performance is lacking in subtlety and insight. The fearless, hard-working Watts of "Mulholland Drive" is beginning to fall back on those cauliflower eyes too much. A supporting cast - including Gainsbourg and Melissa Leo, as Jack wife - represent the world of better-fated souls whose lives are nonetheless halted by extreme conditions of their loved ones. Gainsbourg is particularly good as a woman who clearly loves her husband more than her husband ever has, or will, love her. Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography is the preferred look for urban decay, and his work does not disappoint here. And Inarritu again shows off a brilliant directorial transparency from scene to scene and an eye for detail that rewards repeat viewings. Yet the structure betrays him; the "grace notes" of "21 Grams" - Paul watching over a sleeping Cristina, Jack at the altar, praying for forgiveness - aren't strong enough to justify giving up the game. Traditionally presented, the movie could have been the best of 2003.
Rating: 
Summary: Good acting and excellent presentation.
Review: 21 Grams (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2003) First, let's get this out of the way: the myth of the 21 Grams is exactly that, a myth. I was hoping Inarritu would cover that bit when he addressed the title within the scope of the movie, but he didn't. (Amazon doesn't allow outside links, or I'd point you to the evidence. But any debunking site should have a page about the 21 Grams myth.) Okay, now that that's out of the way, onto the movie. Inarritu, best known for Amores Perros, takes the same framework and makes another movie from it: freak accident, three main characters, intertwining lives. Our three characters this time are Cristina Peck (Mulholland Dr. and The Ring's Naomi Watts), whose family is killed in a hit and run accident; Paul Rivers (Sean Penn), whose life is saved when he receives the heart of Cristina's husband; and Jack Jordan (Benecio del Toro), who was driving the truck. The three of them are (forgive the pun) on a collision course with destiny, but as we all know, getting there is half the fun. Inarritu wants to make it all the fun, and turn what would otherwise have been a conventional drama barely worth a turn on the Lifetime Movie Network into an edgy, claustrophobic mystery. For the most part, it works; scenes cut back and forth in time, giving us small pieces to the overall puzzle and making us wonder "okay, now how did character X get into situation Y?" Which is all well and good, except that the payoff is stretched a little, and the whole thing goes on a bit long for the conceit to work with maximum effect. Ultimately, 21 Grams is bound to get compared to Memento, and it falls a bit short. But it's still well worth watching. *** ½
Rating: 
Summary: one of the best films of 2003
Review: it's been awhile since we've seen anything quite this moving or deep in the mulitplex cinemas but 21 grams will definately move you & leave you speechless. let's first look at what we are working with & you'll see why. for those of you who remember amorres perros three years ago, the same director has crafted a new masterpiece which actually rivals or transcends when compared. 21 grams is as compelling as it suspenseful & complex. here we have three different people whose path will eventually cross at one point or another & the end results are inevitably tragic even though we may have a greater appreciation of life after viewing this film. while the film may start out a bit confusing with the flashbacks & characterization, i encourage you to stick with it as you are in for a real emotional treat which in my opinion can't be touched by any other film in the multiplex currently. although sean penn always delivers the goods, 21 grams also provides us with flawless character depictions from naomi watts & benicio del toro who definately give oscar caliber performances. i sat in the theatre & i could not move a muscle as i watched these tortured souls lives unravel before my eyes. it's virtually impossible not to feel something for them as they grieve, search, & try to mend their broken spirits throughout the course of two hours. 21 grams poses many questions to us about the life we live & about the choices we make everyday which effect those around us. if there is any justice in this world, naomi watts will take home the oscar for best actress. do not let this film pass you by. i urge you to go out & see it now!!!
Rating:
Summary: 21 Grams
Review: Paul is a man with a bad heart and a failing marriage. Jack is a born again ex-con who sometimes takes things a little too far. Christine is happily married and has two daughters. All three have nothing in common until one fateful day that binds them together in a way that none expect. 21 Grams is a great movie that I would hate to spoil with further plot points. It is told in a haphazard way, jumping forward and backward in time, that really works and is part of the reason for the movie's greatness. It is confusing at first, but then things start to fall together and make sense. The acting is top notch from all three leads as well -- all could easily be nominated come Oscar time.
Rating:
Summary: Simultaneously absorbing and annoying
Review: The format of 21 GRAMS might have made me really cranky had I not admired the acting as much as I did. The film depicts lives in collision. Paul (Sean Penn) is an invalid awaiting a heart transplant. Born-again Christian Jack (Benicio Del Toro) is an ex-con struggling to make a life for his wife and two kids. One day, Jack accidentally runs down and kills Michael (Danny Huston) and the latter's two young daughters with his pick-up, then flees the scene, but subsequently turns himself in. Michael's widow, Christina (Naomi Watts), is left alone to deal with her loss and a drug abuse problem, while her dead husband's heart is transplanted into Paul. Christina doesn't know who received the organ, and Paul doesn't know the name of the donor, but hires a private investigator to find out. Once he discovers his benefactor's identity, he tracks down Christina and subsequently falls in love with her while leaving behind his own wife, Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who's pregnant with Paul's child after having had an operation to correct a plumbing problem caused by a previous abortion that had effectively left her sterile. After Jack is released from detention for the hit-and-run, Christina wants him dead. Is this a soap opera? Hey, does a bear eat Krispy Kremes in the woods? Several years back, the film MEMENTO was cleverly told beginning with the plot's end and working backwards. This technique reinforced the fact of the hero's lack of long-term memory. And, once the viewer got the hang of it, following the story's reverse evolution was an entertaining challenge. The director of 21 GRAMS, Alejandro Inarritu, perhaps hoping to achieve the same level of audience engagement, chopped up the film reel into separate vignettes, spliced them back together into more or less random order, then left it to the viewers to figure out what's happening. It took me the first hour to go from complete perplexity to relative enlightenment. In a movie season that has included some really depressing films (HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, MONSTER, CITY OF GOD), 21 GRAMS ranks up there in its ability to dump cold water on my naturally ebullient spirit. (Here the wife says,"You're a grouch anyway!") The acting in 21 GRAMS is beyond reproach, and deserves the Oscar nominations it's received (Watts and Del Toro). However, Inarritu's artsy manipulation of the timeline was perhaps gratuitous. For me, it only served to annoy, and the story would have been better served if presented in a conventional manner. Even by the film's end, a question concerning Christina's substance abuse remained unanswered to my satisfaction. Did it predate her marriage to Michael? Perhaps I lost focus for a brief moment while grubbing the last kernels out of the popcorn box. By the way, "21 grams" ostensibly refers to the weight lost by the body when an individual dies.
Rating:
Summary: 21 Grams: Stunningly well acted
Review: 21 Grams is a movie about ordinary people dealing with unfathomable pain in extraordinary circumstances. The movie touches upon some of the fundamental questions that we all eventually ask: where do we go after death? What is the meaning of life? And perhaps the most painful question of all, how do we go on living after loved ones have died? All of the characters in 21 Grams are well acted, but Naomi Watts gives the most shattering performance as Christina Peck, a reformed party girl who is coming to terms with the loss of her family. The plot thickens when she becomes involved with the math professor (Sean Penn) who received her dead husband's heart. The thing that really struck me about this movie is how real all the characters seemed. True, the plot at times bordered on melodrama, but at the center of the movie was an intense understanding of and acknowledgement of pain of all kinds; whether a little bit of pain, or an overwhelming amount. This is, in my opinion, one of the best movies of 2003, and I think that Naomi Watts gives the best performance of 2003. I was absolutely stunned by Watts' performance, as I have never before seen an actress capable of displaying such devastating emotions with such a heartfelt fervor. I think this movie was phenomenal, but you might not want to watch it if A)you can't handle non-linear storytelling, and/or B)you can't handle depressing storylines. If you're looking for a well-acted movie with a philosophical premise, however, then 21 Grams is the movie for you.
Rating:
Summary: Another excellent experience in film-making
Review:
Rating:
Summary: Everything About It Is Beautiful....
Review: Everything about this film is beautiful and superb. All three stars give amazing performances. Del Toro's best role since 'Dr. Gonzo', in "Fear & Loathing". Sean Penn is great as usual, and Naomi Watts is to brilliant for words.
'21 Grams' is a story of three stories...all connected in a way. It resembles PT Anderson's work in "Magnolia" (connection wise), and Tarantino's work in "Reservoir Dogs" & "Pulp Fiction" (plot sequence wise).
Five stars is the only rating you could give this film. Go see it and you'll love it. The best film that I've seen in 2004 so far.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Thought Provoking
Review: "21 Grams" demands your attention from the opening scene. The movie is edited in a non-linear fashion-think Quentin Tarantino-and each of the many scenes is one tiny piece of a very big puzzle. Eventually you grasp the story lines of the major characters. Sean Penn plays a Mathematics professor. He's a cynic and a philanderer with a bad heart. Literally. He is awaiting a transplant. Naomi Watts plays a beautiful suburban mother, a former druggie and party girl, who now loves her family deeply. Benico del Toro plays a troubled man, an ex-con with a bad temper, who now relies on Jesus to keep him straight. A traumatic event causes these three lives to interesect with tragic consequences. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil the movie. The actors are all outstanding. The three leads amaze you. The supporting cast also boasts powerful performances. Melissa Leo plays del Toro's wife, a Lady Macbeth in a trailer park. Charlotte Gainsbourg, the English actress, plays Penn's wife, a woman desperate to have a baby at all costs even if her husband won't be there to see the child grow up. I appreciated the use of the non-linear technique. However, I believe that it may have failed the movie towards the end. Certain actions taken by Penn and Watt's characters don't necessarily make sense. As we have not seen these characters develop, we don't understand how they get to certain points of desparation. Still it is an outstanding movie. I would recommend it to individuals who gravitate towards serious, thoughtful, "art-house" films. It will leave you thinking about a number of issues for days.
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