about
You're reading a really old version of matt-thornton's website. For example, if you're looking at the movie reviews... you'll notice that none of them are of recent films. Indeed, I leave them here for posterity's sake, but I doubt very much that they'll get updated anytime soon. So have a giggle.
You might, if you're lucky, find something recent from Matt at his blog matt's debates. Kernow bys vyken.
21 Grams
the one line review:
Memento... but it makes sense
the overview
This is one of those "Hey, this'll confuse 'em" films. Where the director decides it's a good idea to show random clips of the film in seemingly random places and hope you can decipher what the hell is going on. It also confuses things further by going backwards, then at an undiclosed point skipping forward to the present.
But it actually works...
the plot:
Right, where do I start. You've got three main people involved... Benicio Del Toro plays an ex-con turned religious dude with all sorts of issues. Naomi Watts (from Mulholland Drive fame) is the wife and mother to a husband and two kids. Sean Penn plays the bloke who is in need of a heart transplant due to some illness (we're not told what it is, but it might be due to being a chain smoker, or something else). Anyway, when Benicio Del Toro kills Naomi Watts' husband and kids in a car accident, Sean Penn gets the heart transplant. He then goes looking for her to find out about the donor, ends up shagging her brains out, and then conspire to kill Del Toro. It's all pretty simple really. And sadly if you've read that and not seen the film, then I've just ruined it all for you.
the verdict:
So why's it good? I've seen films like this before, most notably, Memento. But there's others in the same sort of genre... you know the one that is trying to be really really clever and make you thinkg and figure shit out. Like Vanilla Sky, and Mulholland Drive. But with them, it's either too obvious or boring (VS) or just way too fucking complicated that for the whole film you haven't got a scooby-doo what is going on. This one though... it works. Can't say I'd ever heard of the director before, but he's definitely taken a leaf out of old David Lynch's book with this one. And surpassed it, I think.
It's not a cheery film - in fact it's pretty fekking miserable the whole way through so don't expect to feel particularly good at the end of it. But it's enjoyable. And you say Watts' boobs. Big nipples.
Watch it.
P.S. People ask why it's called 21 Grams. Seeing as how I've spoiled the rest of the film, I might as well spoil that too - it's apparently the weight you lose when you die (as well as a bunch of other stuff). See... cheery.
All movie reviews
