Review: Crash

Rated PG-13 | 113 mins

IMDB Info

Paul Haggis, who spoke with such remarkable confidence through his screenplay for Million Dollar Baby, one of the best films of the past few years, seems to be his own worst enemy in Crash, his directorial debut. Ambition-wise, he doesn’t disappoint, taking on the touchy concept of the frightening practicalities of racism in Modern-Day American Society. However, while the movie is far from a bad one, Crash is not everything that it could’ve been. Often not making full use of the undeniable knack for observing the vulnerabilities of life created by mere human tragedy that he displayed in Million Dollar Baby, he here crafts an ensemble-driven motion picture that is unrealistically trite. In the film, every single character is a racist in some way or another. Because of this, it seems as though Haggis wants to make a statement—and maybe he does—that his cast is representative of the majority of people in reality. As a result, it’s hard to take the truly valid and thoughtful material in the film seriously.

This all being said, Crash contains many redeeming passages and qualities. In particular, there are three scenes in it that are able to overpower and transcend the endlessly contrived slew of racist remarks which exist in its realm. They conclude stories regarding a conflict between a Persian store-owner and a Latino handy-man, a crooked cop and a woman he violates as her husband watches, and the cop’s former partner who one night picks up another man who has lost all direction in life. As I witnessed each of these sketches, I felt as though seeing the movie was an entirely worthwhile decision. Haggis’ powerful abilities as both a writer and a director are beautifully displayed in each of them. This isn’t to say that he was the only talented person who participated in the making of the film; Don Cheadle, Thandie Newton, Terrence Howard, Jennifer Esposito, Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Michael Pena, Matt Dillon, and Ryan Phillippe are just a few of the members of the cast, which is as artistically diverse as it is racially diverse. Together, they allow the motion picture’s artificial and, in truth, somewhat stereotypical ideas to form a whole that is far more poignant than it ever could’ve been on paper. Crash’s repetitive execution may be maddening at times, but the experience proves ultimately rewarding in more ways than one.