Crash

Crash, 2004
Directed by Paul Haggis
Nominated for 6 Oscars, Won 3
Up Against: Brokeback Mountain, Goodnight and Good Luck, Munich, Capote

Crash tells the story of racism in LA. It tells 6 different stories, all of which don't seem to connect with each other at first, but as the story goes along, it does. I'd explain the intersecting stories, but I'd end up explaining the whole movie to you. The first storyline is about a middle-aged white couple, the man of whom is a dsitrict attorney and uses race as a political card in his career, and his wife who was recently car-jacked feels that her biases and views towards those who aren't white are justified and therefore not racism. Then we have the car-jackers; 2 young black men, one of whom is constantly complaining about racism half the time, and uses it as an excuse the other half. Then we have 2 cops, the experienced one a racist pig, the other who believes he doesn't hold those views at all, and hates the experienced cop for his. We have a black filmmaker and his wife, who were recenetly harassed by said cops, the wife semi-molested during the experience, and feels her husband doesn't support their black background and tries to be "too white". Then we have a Latino man, who is trying to make a better life for his daughter. And a Persian family trying to make it in America with their store, who have recently purchased a gun.

I'm going to put it out there right away, this movie tried WAY too hard to get it's "point" across, that racism still happens today. In all honesty, most of the things that happened weren't really racism, just people making stupid decisions. Granted, there were a lot of examples of racism, but there were also a lot of examples of people acting like idiots. But that's besides the point. This movie just took everything to the extreme to make a point, and it really lowered it's value. This year's The Help also dealt with racism, but did it in a much better way, which wasn't throwing it in your face every 5 seconds.

Ludacris's character was the car-jacking, racism complainer. All we really did heard from him was about how racism is unfair, how racist people are, and how he don't ever steal from black people. I understand him complaining at first, but it got really tiring after over an hour of straight complaining whenever he was on screen. Granted, he did a great job in his role, and I thought he was quite well acted.

This is the same with pretty much all the character. I know it was a film about racism, but in other films about racism, it's not a constant rant about race, which is what this movie was. Sure, there were some powerful moments in the film, like when the filmmakers wife is rescued from the car crash just before it exploded by the racist cop who semi-molested her only 12 hours before. Powerful, and it wasn't as blatant as some of the other scenes, and had much more subtlety to it.

Anyway, enough about my rant about it's obviousness. Other than that fact, the acting was quite good. While most characters spent very little time on screen (another problem of the film, I felt like I was being introduced to someone new, constantly), they performed well. I was pleasantly surprised by Ludacris. I'd had no expectations from him, but he was quite good. And I really enjoyed Sandra Bullock as the cold and racist woman. Things like cinematography were good too.

Overall I spent half the movie going "oh my gosh..." and rolling my eyes, or being like "really? did that just happen?". I also laughed a lot. This movie was just too corny and hoaky, and while it did get it's message across, loud and clear, it was just too much. Also, has anyone ever heard of this movie?

Acting- 7/10 
Directing- 7/10 
Screenplay- 6/10 
Visuals- 7/10 
Music- 7/10 Emotional Connection- 4/10 
Entertainment- 5/10 
Rewatchability- 6/10 
Overall Enjoyment- 5/10 
Overall Package- 5/10     
Total: 59/100