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21 Grams

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 41 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 67 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Guillermo Arriaga
Directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 21, 2003
DVD: March 16, 2004
Running Time: 125 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for language, sexuality, some violence and drug use
Starring Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Danny Huston, Clea DuVall, Chance Romero, and Marc Musso
They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death. (Focus Features)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Amores Perros
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
ReelViews James Berardinelli
A stunning kaleidoscope of a motion picture - a mosaic of images that gradually resolves itself into a powerful tale of tragedy and redemption.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
You won't come out unaffected, because the depths of intimacy that the Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu plumbs here are so rarely touched by filmmakers that 21 Grams is tantamount to the discovery of a new country.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
At the very least, look for it on 10-best lists next month, and there's every chance it will be a strong contender at the Oscars. Filmmaking so sensitive and intelligent deserves its weight in honors.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Unstintingly explores and exposes excruciating pain, raw grief, ruinous vengeance and life-affirming resilience, creating human portraits that are uncommonly exhilarating in their honesty. This is cinematic art in its highest form.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
As darkness falls over the movie landscape comes the year's darkest and best movie of them all - Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
This sad, staggering drama should be seen: out of the grimness, and the profound calamity, you can almost taste life in your mouth.
Read Full Review >Empire Rob Fraser
21 Grams strives for greatness, and that's precisely what it achieves.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The movie itself is a miracle: tough, smart, relentless, provocative and, above all, serious.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
A stunning virtuoso performance by director, cast and crew. This movie knocks you out with an astonishing blend of hyper-realism, visual complexity and powerful themes.
Read Full Review >Film Threat D.W. Smith
Trust me, if you have a thirst for a good, dark drama, this one is a big gulp.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
What gives the film a formalist kick is that the story unfolds piecemeal as a series of nonlinear moments. What gives it soul are the three lead actors who pull the pieces together with devastating power.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Mr. Penn has been praised lavishly for his work in "Mystic River," in a role that was no reach for him at all, but this is one of the stand-out performances of his career, layered and exquisitely nuanced. And, remarkably, he's only one-third of a stellar ensemble.
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Stunningly photographed, largely with a hand-held camera, by Rodrigo Prieto (another member of the "Amores Perros" team) on gritty locations in Memphis and Albuquerque, 21 Grams is also a visual tour de force - and a rare Hollywood product depicting class differences with any kind of honesty.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Blessed with one of the strongest casts of any American movie this year, this bravura film, with its radical structure, is full of risk and reward.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
One of the most original, and certainly among the best-acted films this year, 21 Grams focuses on people on the verge of dying, having survived death or grasping at the slender threads of new lives.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
A punch in the stomach of a movie. It is as ugly as it is beautiful, as full of peaks as of lows. It's a character-driven movie about people on an emotional edge who are ridding themselves of the things that can no longer work without inflicting damage.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Paradoxically, a movie that loses power the more you perceive what's actually going on in it. Laid end to end, the story is, to put it mildly, overwrought, fusing several cataclysms too many.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
A nearly unparalleled actor's showcase, the film boasts performances of impressive quality and quantity...Their complexity matches the film's.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rick Kisonak
Each and every one of the movie's 125 minutes is a moment of searing truth.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
The payoff in 21 Grams comes not from watching characters achieve or overcome but from the recognition of their struggle not to give up the fight.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
21 Grams tells such a tormenting story that it just about survives its style. It would have been more powerful in chronological order, and even as a puzzle, it has a deep effect.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Despite juggled storytelling, the movie's compelling.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Aside from a little eleventh-hour pseudo-mysticism about death and the weight of the soul, the story is really little more than a unusually gripping thriller.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
Aimed at the brain, when it should have been one for the heart.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
As in "Amores perros," Iñarritu and Arriaga slice and dice the chronology, which helps distract from the warmed-over story elements and focus attention on the superior performances.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Watts, who has the most difficult scenes, is splendidly mercurial; what's surprising is that those professional storm clouds Penn and Del Toro are here as powerfully restrained as she is electrifying.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Uprooted from their home soil, González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga can't quite manage to make this gloomy, improbable stew of romance, film noir and pseudo-metaphysical speculation hang together.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
While a splendidly acted and worthily grown-up movie, too often has the feel of a potboiling soap opera, with twists and turns that range from the grimly ironic to the absurdly sensational.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The fragmented style is distracting and ultimately annoying, robbing the story of its suspense and drive while contributing nothing except self-conscious style.
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
Ambitiously structured in non-chronological fragments that form a fascinating puzzle, this raw drama about grief, guilt and redemption becomes ultimately overextended and overwrought in its final stretch.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
What keeps this movie honest is the characters, each of them a mass of conflicting instincts, virtues and vices. You know Gonzalez Inarritu comes from outside Hollywood because he doesn't divide the world into heroes and villains.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Luckily, Penn, Watts and Leo carry more weight than that; they keep this movie's two hours and five minutes from seeming like lost time.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Long on mood and moodiness, but at a loss as how to break any interesting human ground.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
It's so laden with foreboding, you want to get out from under it and gasp for air.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
As usual with Penn, I don't completely buy the character, but I completely buy that he has brilliantly internalized SOMETHING. He goes to some weird psychological places, our Sean.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
It’s forceful, to be sure, but in a lurid way that suggests a telenovela that’s been baking in the sun too long.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The kind of bad movie that makes a reviewer feel terrible. It has been put together with great sincerity, and yet, impassioned and affecting as some of it is, 21 Grams is also an arrogant failure. [24 November 2003, p. 113]
LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Where "Amores Perros" was a feast of energy, wit and imagination, 21 Grams is like a starvation diet -- a movie that wallows so profoundly in its own misery that watching it is like atoning for some sin you didn't commit.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 67 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
caporegime gave it a3:
So trying hard to make things complicated and ending up making this film boring enough to doze of my adrenalin of caffeine.
Levi S. gave it a10:
Easaly one of the best drama movies I've seen to date. The non-lineair structure makes it unique and keeps you focused on the movie, the story is very dark and emotional, but it doesn't exceed the limits of what's good and the visuals of this movie are just stunning,it looks like Iñárritu carefully selected the lightning, background, clothing of the actors and camera type, to optimise the colors, brightness and contrast, which makes it truly a piece of visual poetry.
Paul W. gave it a2:
Grams is a completely boring and uncompelling story about people who are instantly forgettable because we have seen them all before. Much of the character's actions are either clichéd or too unsympathetic to be gripping. The movie plods so much that it actually slows down real time, the story jumps around like a frog on speed and the soundtrack, if you can call it that, didn't take more than 1 guitarist recording some feedback from his guitar while he was taking a nap on it.
lewis gave it a9:
My favorite movie , great picture, awesome acting , it shows the sad reality of life and the struggle for a better one after we fall.
jw gave it a9:
(9.5) Naomi Watts did not win the Oscar that year. An uglified Charlize Theron did instead. Forgetting the last two presidential elections, this may be the worst voting result in history. ...Penn and del Toro aren't exactly slouches either, are they? Their bookending performances only serve to highlight the travesty. One cannot shine so brightly in their company and not come away with a statue.
Isaac C. gave it a6:
Arguably the best film of 2004. Benicio Del Toro as usual acts the socks of everyone else around him. Although the story is far too conveniently artistic to ever be considered as anything resembling any kind of reality it grips you and shakes violently from start to finish. My one grievance with this film is that although the rewards for those who are patient enough to accept the initially incomprehensible first half hour on good faith are great, on second and third viewing the film becomes slow, the tension is gone and the story becomes trite. As someone who continuously re-watches my favourite films with little or no loss of enjoyment I am left with one question: Is a film worth watching if you can only see it once?
oldboy ch gave it a5:
acting was over and the actor are too emotional. and why can the girls in this film seem very stupid? very loyal and sure with a math prof and poor ex-prisoner. In my opinion they better leave the guy in that situation.
