21 Grams DVD Review

Presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 the image looks very good with plenty of detail present in the print. The overall appearance is one of grain in every scene, but this is intentional and is not distracting, instead it adds to the decollate scenery and deep emotion of the piece. Colours are bland by design and over saturated, but this looks good and there are no signs of edge enhancement or other digital artefacts.

As with all of Focus Features recent output we are given both DTS and Dolby 5.1 soundtracks and both handle the source material with no problems. Being a dialogue heavy movie there are not many excuses for over the top mixing, but there are good panning effects here and there and a nice enveloping feel to the subtle material. Comparing both sound formats and you are hard pushed to notice any real differences as both a nicely dynamic and produce good intelligible dialogue.

I would have loved a feature like that provided with the DVD of Memento where we can chose to watch the movie in a linear form. I would have liked a commentary track, maybe a featurette on making the film and what about interviews with cast and crew. Oh and maybe a trailer? Well what we get here is none of the above, we get nothing!
21 Grams gives us some stunning performances from the leads and an interesting if not overly successful non-linear way of telling the story, the disc is adequate but the extras are non-existent.