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Scratching Head When this movie was first released, it got a great deal of buzz about being ground-breaking, emotionally stirring, etc etc etc. There were even a couple of Oscar nominations thrown in for good measure. (Naomi Watts for Best Actress and Benicio Del Toro for Best Supporting Actor) I failed to be moved, however. Taking a page out of the Tarantino playbook and jumping around in its time frame, 21 GRAMS did nothing new in so much that I was able to discern. I don't have a studied eye, just one of those memories which knows when it's seen the same crap before. So where I have to fend off people telling me that Quentin borrows from other sources and isn't all that original, I'm going to throw that same logic out for this movie. The story is one meant to pull at the heartstrings. A woman from an upper middle class family loses her husband and two young daughters when a man with a long criminal past runs them over in his truck. Her husband's heart is donated to a man who is dying from some fatal disease. The criminal is in a place in his life where he's trying to make right. He's become a huge Jesus freak and dutifully goes to church with his wife and two young children. We, the audience, are supposed to feel some kind of sympathy for him. He was on the right track and he just made a mistake. *BUZZZZZ!* Wrong! While Del Toro is good in his role, there's just too much behind his eyes which convince me that he's irredeemable. A rotten apple is a rotten apple and no matter how much you praise your gods, you're destined to continue to repeat your mistakes. Whether that is by your own choosing or by the design in which society sets up for you, making it easy for a junkie to go back to their old habits. Much like it was easy for the mother in grief to go back to drinking and using coke. I know that if I were to lose my daughter I would not be all that right in the head, but I doubt that I'd be heading down to the local club to find my old dealer and get stocked up once more. Watts is so f*cking screechy and shrill that it's hard to look past her outbursts and feel all that sorry for her. This was a film that was angling for my maternal tears and fell very, very short of getting them. And I cry easily over cinematic drama. Hell, I cry easily when I get cut off in traffic. I was bone dry watching her wince and preen. Hey filmmakers! Ever thought about getting an actress who is actually a mother in order for those scenes to come off more believable? Nah... that would mean that she wouldn't be able to pull off anorexic chic. (Another hint for future casting decisions. I know people who do coke on a semi-regular basis. You don't have to be a size zero for that to be the case.) Sean Penn, one of my favorite actors, is woefully misused. I almost think that he got thrown in for street cred. As the man who receives the donated heart and then becomes obsessed with its former owner's widow, he wheezes and stumbles about. That is, when he's not furrowing his brow and looking off into the distance. The side characters are all loathsome. Del Toro's wife trying to cover up the murder that her husband committed is detestable. I highly doubt that anyone other than a very small percentage would be trying to cover up the kind of crime that he committed, especially someone who is a mother themselves. I'm going to throw in a star for Del Toro since he's the only believable performance in the flick and another star just for hiring Clea DuVall in a minor role. Other than that, I wasn't impressed, I wasn't moved and I wouldn't even be writing this review unless it hadn't been requested of me. email this review to a friend
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Feb 12, 2008 7:08 PM
And as much as it sucks that there are bad people in the world, without them we would never appreciate those who actually contribute value to society. It is a miserable state of life that there must be child abuse, murder, gender/racial inequality and so on. It's what makes the balance in life.
Feb 13, 2008 1:13 AM