Review of 21 Grams (2003) by Ben S — 29 Aug 2009

This Amores Perros film is a story about hope with more than a few dark undertones.

The story starts with Benicio Del Toro's character in a church helping with an underage delinquent, showing that Benicio Del Toro has had a dark past himself. Then it jumps to Naomi Watts character as she trys to cope with a lose in great emotional lose in her life, and last but not least it jumps to Sean Penn's character who is struggling with sickness and the fact that he might not have very long to live.

As the story continues all these peoples lives collide in an emotional and violent way.

21 Grams was filmed in a very interesting way, as you watch it jumping back and forth through different peoples lives. All though it is hectic it does seem to have some structure to its crazyness. One criticism I would have it that at first the jumping is confusiong at it takes the viewer a while to realize whats going on and catch up with the movie.

This movie's key trait is its superb acting from the whole cast. As you watch the cast fight with themselves mentally and with others physically. This is a very dark and depressing film with signs of hope mixed in but overall very sad. with a great script this movie soars past other dramas, also the intense acting really gets the viewer into each persons life stories and you feel their pain and anguish alongside them throughout the film.

As a drama and a great film overall it succeeds greatly. With its stellar acting, great story, and intense emotionally sequences envolving each character. This movie is hard to stop watching once you start. and really gets the viewer involved in a creative way.