Overall Rating
  Awesome: 36.3%
Worth A Look: 25.27%
Average: 8.19%
Pretty Bad: 12.81%
Total Crap: 17.44%
13 reviews, 203 user ratings
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Crash (2005) |
by MP Bartley
"*thwack* Racism is bad, repeat! *thwack* Racism is bad, repeat! *thwack*..."

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There's a fantastic scene in a British episode of 'The Office' where David Brent is playing his staff a song he's wrote on his guitar. It includes the lyrics "Who is wrong and who is right? Who is black and who is white?" before finishing on the thought "You're now colourblind". And just in case no-one has quite got it, Brent spreads his hands and says "Racial!" to his audience. 'Crash' is the film equivalent of that song - it does all that nasty thinking business for you.Aiming for a sprawling, Magnolia-like affair, writer and director Paul Haggis throws several disparate characters into the mix before slowly connecting them through a few days and via the theme of racism. There's the distrct attorney Rick (Brendan Fraser) and his wife Jean (Sandra Bullock) who are carjacked by two thieves (Ludacris and Larenz Tate), who just moments before had been complaining that Jean shrank away from them in a racist reaction. Later, Jean will tell Rick to fire their locksmith, Daniel (Michael Pena) because he's a Mexican, and likely to sell their spare keys to a gang.
There's also a rookie cop, Hanson (Ryan Phillipe), who's disgusted at the racist attitude of his partner Ryan (Matt Dillon) who harasses a film director Cameron (Terence Howard) simply because he's black, giving his wife Christine (Thandie Newton), a good grope while he's at it. Later, Cameron will discover that racism exists - shock! - in the film industry too. Lastly, we have detective Graham (Don Cheadle) whose own prejudices are confronted by a chance of promotion and his affair with his Latino partner (Jennifer Esposito).
That's a lot of characters and storylines to cram into one film, but Haggis doesn't have the luxury of a Magnolia or Short Cuts running time. Instead, everything is crushed into under two hours with the film eventually crippled under its own weight and contrivance. So while Magnolia give its many characters over three hours to breathe, and the various connections plenty of time to connect, there's no such room here. Everything here comes out of the glue tube called 'convenience'. Ryan sexually assaults Christine late at night - and guess who he has to save from a motorway pile-up the very next day?
And with Haggis' rush to construct so many characters in so short a time, they end up not being characters at all, they're examples. They don't speak, they pontificate. There's no room to develop them as people, because we learn nothing about them, they just give handy soundbites on how bad and how widespread racism is. Ironically, this film is far too black and white for its own good.
Saying that, some good acting does pull the film away from total collapse. Howard and Cheadle are strong, giving the film meat on its bones that the screenplay doesn't really merit, and reliable actors like Keith David and William Fichtner crop up in one scene cameos to lighten up stock parts. And for every actor who's out of their depth (Bullock does nothing but screech and then learn a lesson by falling down the stairs - yeah), there's a cut to someone like Pena or Dillon who are far better. Dillon in particular, gives a memorable, if small, performance. The scene with the doctor's receptionist? That's his Oscar clip right there.Not just a painfully obvious film, 'Crash' is a big wagging finger of a lecture. Haggis does show some directorial flair (his last shot is a beauty) but he just can't get away from his own clunky screenplay.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10448&reviewer=293 originally posted: 02/03/06 21:20:42
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Toronto Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Toronto Film Festival series, click here.
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USA 06-May-2005 (R) DVD: 04-Apr-2006
UK N/A
Australia 28-Apr-2005
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