CRASH (2004)
- Crash (2004)
- Five years later, Hollywood finally manages to rip off Magnolia with the help of the creator of Walker, Texas Ranger.
Ok, ok settle down… finally, here is the first post of my ongoing column reviewing my Netflix queue. I promise you things will get very weird as the envelopes fly back and forth from the shipping center in Flushing. However, we start with the most populist of the recently nominated films for Best Picture, Paul Haggis’ paint-by-numbers pseudo-epic, Crash.
Haggis, former writer of 80’s sitcoms and 90’s geriatric Kung-Fu westerns, took all the heavy-handedness he crammed into the last half hour of Million Dollar Baby and spreads it out over two hours. What he creates is an abundantly “important,” yet emotionally laughable rip off of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia.
Haggis’s formula goes something like this: Magnolia - plausable character development (i.e. 1 hour) + shoehorned racial stereotypes - “Respect the Cock” + dudes falling to their knees screaming “NO!” - frogs falling from the sky + snow in Los Angeles + Ludacris = Crash.
The most aggrivating of all these additions and subtractions has to be the racial element…after all that’s what makes this movie controversial (if by controversial you mean that stereotypically drawn characters making about-faces in the third act of a Hollywood movie is somehow a novel idea). The result is a predictible, pandering waste of time.
Haggis wishes his thesis had something to do with racism, but in reality, all Crash teaches us is that it isn’t wise to aggrivate situations with people holding guns.
Watch this movie next time you’re drinking with buddies… play guess the slur and hand out drinks if you get it right. Just don’t drive afterwards.
February 1st, 2006 at 8:05 am
amen, brother. i could barely stomach this movie. and matt dillon for best supporting actor nomination? are they nuts?!
he was infinitely better as pat healy in something about mary, but i guess great acting in comedy never counts for anything.
February 1st, 2006 at 8:22 am
Apparently everyone on this site hates this movie. I liked it, didn’t love it, but thought it was pretty good.
February 1st, 2006 at 2:13 pm
I respectfully disagree with your analysis. I think it was a powerful movie, one that yes, did play with stereotypes — but I believe that was completely on purpose. Haggis’s choice of direction, in my opinion, was commenting on the state of how people perceive racial interaction and personalities and so there’s a heightened sense of caricature — perhaps he tried to do too much in too little time and it came off as trite to you, but I think I got his message loud and clear and I interpreted it as thoughtful.
I’m so fascinated by how differently people can view such a movie.
February 1st, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Preach it Lea. Do you pronounce it Lee-uh or Lay-uh. I prefer Lay-uh, because I am a dork and often pretend I’m Han when I’m alone in my house.
February 1st, 2006 at 2:54 pm
han harlan. how’s chewy?
February 1st, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Justin, it’s exactly how Han pronounces it.
February 6th, 2006 at 5:52 am
Well, atleast we get to see Jennifer Esposito’s sexy butt for a second or two.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
and one boob…did anyone else find it odd that in the opening scene jennifer esposito was immediately called a Mexican (in a heavy handed derogatory manner, of course). just funny to me that the script called for a stereorypically Mexican-looking woman and Hollywood gave us Jennifer Esposito.
oh, and to anyone who says “that was the point”….bite me.
March 11th, 2006 at 3:40 am
Wow I have to disagree with you. So maybe at times the film was a little “rich” with stereotypes. But this movie tackled a lot of important issues that are going on in society today and just because you may not experience some of these inequalities it doesn’t mean that they can just be ignored. I say watch the movie again. (Maybe this time watch it with a diverse group people).
April 18th, 2006 at 11:55 am
I found that this movie touched on many important and relevant issues that affect our society today. Some of the major themes included racism, family structures and bonds, violence, sexual violence, crime, politics and international human trafficking. (also the content is not the issue in this movie but what the movie entails. “we all need to open our eye and smell the coffee”). watch the movie again and be objective.