Genre: Crime, Thriller, Drama, Revenge, Prison, Drugs, Tragedy, Marriage, Infidelity, Melodrama, Detectives, Psychodrama
Tagline: How much does life weigh?
Plot: 21 Grams is the new film from the Academy Award-nominated director of Amores Perros, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. It is a story of hope and humanity, of resilience and survival.Whether you fear death or not, it comes, and at that moment your body becomes twenty-one grams lighter. Is it a person's soul that constitutes those twenty-one grams? Is that weight carried by those who survive us? The lead actors in 21 Grams are three-time Academy Award nominee Sean Penn, Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, and award-winning actress Naomi Watts. The actors were all honored at the film's world premiere at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival, where Sean Penn won Best Actor and Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts earned the Audience Awards for Best Actor and Actress. 21 Grams, written by Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros), explores the emotionally and physically charged existences of three people over a period of several months. An accident unexpectedly throws their lives and destinies together, in a story that will take them to the heights of love, the depths of revenge, and the promise of redemption. College professor Paul Rivers (Sean Penn) and his wife Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg) find their union precariously balanced between life and death. He is mortally ill and awaiting a
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 Few films released in 2003 can boast having as many strengths as 21 Grams. It is, in a word, amazing. It's one of those motion pictures that haunts your thoughts and won't let go. Like Memento, it virtually demands a second viewing to understand and appreciate the story's complexity and to recognize the artistry inherent in all of the transitions. I give this film my highest recommendation. 
The first English-language film from the talented Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("Amores Perros") suffers from the same problems that afflicted his feature debut. Though strongly directed, it's also a confused, confusing and too often glib treatise on matters of life and death.  -- (Boxoffice Magazine)
Under its seemingly chic despair, its celebration of squalor and pain, its violence, its willfully skewed narrative scheme, "21 Grams" turns out to be a powerful relic from a bygone age: It's really a "miracle of faith" movie, as straight-ahead religiousas "Song of Bernadette."-- (Washington Post)
Yet I do not want to give the wrong impression: This is an accomplished and effective film, despite my reservations. It grips us, moves us, astonishes us. Some of the revelations do benefit by coming as surprises. But artists often grow by learning what to leave out.  --ROGER EBERT (Chicago Sun-Times)
I haven't quite made up my mind about "21 Grams." It has definitely stuck with me, like one of those troubling dreams that the first cup of coffee can't clear from your head. It's a brave and admirable film, but not an entirely successful one.-- (Salon)
Unlike "Memento," the reverse-told thriller to which it is being compared, "21 Grams" is highly stylized without being a stunt. Using the structure of "Amores Perros," Iñárritu takes his complex tale of hope and redemption and breaks it into a mosaic of emotional tiles that add up to more than the whole. --Jack Mathews (New York Daily News)
This dark meditation on death and fate by the director of "Amores Perros" is admirable despite its flaws -- and Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts deliver knockout performances.--Andrew O'Hehir (Salon)
Under its seemingly chic despair, its celebration of squalor and pain, its violence, its willfully skewed narrative scheme, "21 Grams" turns out to be a powerful relic from a bygone age: It's really a "miracle of faith" movie, as straight-ahead religiousas "Song of Bernadette."--Stephen Hunter (Washington Post)
If there were more films like this, film fans and critics would be in movie Heaven. 21 Grams reinforces how truly difficult and rare it is to have a film like this that reaches such fantastic heights, and makes you want to cherish it for being bold and one of a kind. A---Lee Tistaert (Lee's Movie Info)
Under the watchful eye of director Alejandro González Iñárritu, it percolates into one of the most filling cinematic treats of the year, by any standard. ... If you enjoyed the visceral, intense moviegoing experience of a film like "Requiem for a Dream," then "21 Grams" is the movie for you to see this winter.--Dean Carrano (FilmJerk.com)
The cast overcomes the random editing and stillborn ending to make “21 Grams” a deeply convincing meditation on the twists and hidden connections found in the bottomless pit of tragedy. B+--Brian Orndorf (FilmJerk.com)
If someone close to you is suffering from a terminal illness, it might be fun to show them this movie as one last practical joke, especially if they’re bed-ridden. But aside from serious gluttons for punishment and people who care more about acting than story, 21 Grams is simply too heavy (no pun intended). 6/10--David Trier (Movie-Vault.com)
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Gloomy as it may be, 21 Grams is ultimately hopeful, and while you won’t emerge feeling uplifted, it’s impossible to deny this film’s rewards.  --Eric Meyerson (FilmCritic.com)
There is much to admire here, but ultimately, ironically, 21 Grams is somewhat soulless.  --Nev Pierce (BBC Films)
As an exercise in style, “21 grams” is pretty solid but still not on the level of “Amores Perros”, which had raw vitality and infectious energy, not to mention the rugged beauty of urban Mexico pouring out of every frame. Here there is some frantic hand-held camerawork, lots of faded colors and moody lighting patterns and impressively Byzantine editing, but thematically it’s as unconvincing as “Levity”, 2003’s other lovable-stalker flick.  --Kevin N. Laforest (Montreal Film Journal)
The performances by Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro are raw, honest and well-deserving of the awards they have gathered. 77/100--Cheryl DeWolfe (Apollo Guide)
Alejandro Inarritu’s eagerly-awaited follow-up to Amores Perros – a moving, gripping study of guilt, revenge, grief and redemption, with astonishing performances from its three leads.  --Matthew Turner (ViewLondon)
Like "Mystic River," "21 Grams" is a grim, compelling and exceedingly well-acted meditation on life, death, guilt and redemption, starring a superlative Sean Penn, that seems an unmistakable response to 9/11.  --Lou Lumenick (New York Post)
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu may be the most talented Quentin Tarantino knockoff around.--Jeffrey M. Anderson (San Francisco Examiner)
Iñárritu's ambitious, enigmatic follow-up to 'Amores Perros' is well worth the weight. 8/10--Anton Bitel (Movie Gazette)
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