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Yar, you be here: 21 Grams > Customer Reviews 21 Grams Customer Reviews (64 - 66 of 78 Reviews)reminds me of "Fargo"
This rather powerful film about a hit-and-run accident and a conspiracy to commit murder is about as depressing a film as you will ever see, but it has to be considered one of the more unusual films of 2003. There is some question as to whether the film's "experimental" nature--told in a series of flashbacks--works to the film's benefit or detriment. It is also rather ridiculous throughout, on certain levels. Sean Penn plays a heart transplant recipient, a math professor, who spends most of the film vomiting because he is dying of asphyxiation. He is also married to a woman who has recently been artifically inseminated with his child. Nevertheless he decides to have an extramarital affair with Naomi Watts, the slinky widow of the heart transplant donor who was killed in a hit-and-run accident along with her two children. Some of the film's most ridiculous scenes are with doctors, as Penn discusses his extremely poor prospects as a heart transplant recipient, or as his wife discusses her artificial insemination. Eventually Penn's wife leaves him due to the knowledge of his extramarital affair. Penn's decision to have the affair is based on his desire to know his donor's family better, which I suppose can be considered a reasonable motivation, in an absurd way. Watts for her part is confused about the reasons for his romancing her and for a long time rejects his advances. The third part in this drama is probably the best acting performance by Benicio Del Toro, who plays a Born Again ex-con who commits the hit-and-run and who is a 3-time loser. His performance is effective not only for its Christian aspects which he plays with great sincerity, but also for the contrast in lifestyles he and his family presents with the upper middle class Penn and Watts.There are several scenes that are well acted: in one, Del Toro encourages his one child to hit his other child, in an "eye for an eye" mentality, then after telling the second child to leave the room, he tells the first there will be no hitting in his household. There is a revival meeting and several other occasions on which Del Toro praises Jesus. In another scene, Del Toro's long-haired wife encourages him to cover up his crime (Del Toro turns himself in.) Eventually Watts and Penn wind up in a seedy motel room,where they continue their affair, and where Penn plans to murder Del Toro, who killed Watts' family inadvertently. But his plans go awry, and he ends up being the one shot, and dies soon after. The whole movie is unrelievedly gruesome though somewhat or greatly entertaining,depending on your viewpoint. Over-rated
Confused, tired, disappointed, left hanging, that is how I feel about 21 Grams. Another feeling I had was a headache from trying to figure out all the supposed hidden meanings, and the closing monologue. The back-and-forth-in-time scene sequence didn't work for me. I don't necessarily believe movies should be linear (two of my favourite movies are "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs", and they are not linear in their scene sequence), but 21 Grams overdoes the non-linearity. I kept feeling like I was cheating, as if I was skipping forward in the movie. A linear storytelling would have worked a lot better, and made me feel more surprised when the story took a twist. There were too many loose ends in the movie (I won't mention them, to avoid spoiling the movie for others). I just felt like I was left hanging. I couldn't grasp the implication of the 21 grams concept, even though I thought I understood the idea before the movie started. I left the movie feeling confused, and quite bitter, as I felt ripped off - the supposed deeper meaning was fairly lame or unfathomable, and the movie fairly pretentious. Excellent acting from Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and Benecio Del Toro though.
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