The script is a soap opera. And the slicing of the chronology was an attempt to hide that fact. I also hated all the gratuitous and melodramatic guy fights, all the guns, all the blood. Fine actors (as these actors all are) are too often put in the position (or put themselves in the position!!!) of having to work with really awful scripts. Melissa Leo's performance really shines, and seems to have been almost totally ignored in both the handing out of awards and in so many of the reviews of this theatrical and horribly manipulative movie.

The color, backdrops, pace and acting (yes, the acting was very good) lent to a very "downer" of a movie. Sure, I've watched a lot of movies that have had ongoing depressing scenes that ended in a sad story. Well, this is one of them.

Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts give their best to a movie that shows the down-trodden lives of people who've hit bottom in some very tragic circumstances. You get a taste of betrayal, deception, lies and confusion, all rolled into one.

I really don't know how to truly classify this movie other than that I would never want to watch it again. Yes, it is a "thought-provoking" movie with some very emotional and touching moments, but there is no reward in the end.

I'm hard put whether to give this alternately depressing and enlightening film a 3 or 4 star rating, but closer to a 4 since the three leads are superb and this film has more substance than a lot of the films currently out there. In a nutshell, it tells of 3 people interlinked to a tragedy involving a car crash (in narrative, very similiar to the director's first, "Amores Perros") and how they eventually finally confront each other in an dynamic finale. Sean Penn must have had a great year, acting-wise, since this film and "Mystic River" netted him an Academy Award, a Golden Globes, and Best Actor by the National Board of Review (a poll by all the leading film critics in the country). Watts and del Toro are also superb in their pivotal roles and the title itself refers to the weight applied to one's life when it begins!!