Paul Haggis must have sold his soul to the Devil...

Rating: 3/10 (14 March 2006)

When I watched the film Crash (which, if you haven't seen it already, is about the lives of people who are affected by racism in Los Angeles), I realized something. No, it wasn't that everyone is a racist. No, it wasn't that everyone as a stereotype. And no, it wasn't that the film beats you over the head with it's foolishly simple message. Instead, I realized that this film accomplishes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Forget about whether this film has any soul or not, because it doesn't. At the end of this film, the audience is no better off than when they first started watching it.
Let's talk about the characters. For one thing, almost every person in this film is a stereotype of popular cultures. Whether it be the racist white cop, the screaming and incoherent Chinese crash victim, the two African-American men who rob people (and I'll get back to that in a second), the police partner with a heart of gold, the Latino man who everyone mistakes for a gangster, the cop who has to sacrifice his ideals to get ahead, or even the fat Italian mechanic, they are ALL shallow and predictable characters. There is absolutely no one in this film I can relate to. Everyone is a shell.
Let's talk about the plot. Here's an example of the story: two African-American men are eating out at a fancy L.A. diner. They complain about how people are treating them unfairly, that they shouldn't be judged based on their skin color, and then they proceed to rob people at gunpoint. Gee, thanks for setting back race relations hundreds of years, guys. And what about the racist cop who molests an African-American woman for no reason, then proceeds to save her life the next day, and realizes the error of his ways. Would you like me to beat the "racism is bad" symbolism into your head some more? How about the cop who is forced to conform to a white person's beliefs to get a promotion at work? Still not enough? And then there's the Persian storekeeper who goes after a person who he supposedly thought robbed his store, and shoots a gun at him in broad daylight? Christ, the plot is so messed up that it's not even funny.
That brings me to another area of the movie: the characters. You tell me, when have you ever seen a white police officer launch into a rant about "you people" to an African-American customer service woman? Or when have you ever heard a policemen talk about black people like they are a nuisance? No one in this film talks like a normal person. It's ALL hackneyed dialogue designed to elicit a response from us, the viewers. Even the character behavior is all out of wack. As I said before, who talks about the mistreatment of their race and then proceeds to act in a stereotypical representation of their culture? Who decides to go out in broad daylight to shoot a man in front of many witnesses, and how do you not realize you were firing blanks? Better yet, why would you practically molest a woman in the middle of a crowded street? And there's even the part where a car chase occurs, and no one even bothers to fill out any paperwork or anything. These characters are all hopeless idiots.
And then there's the ending, where we find out one of the carjackers is suddenly Don Cheadle's brother, despite the fact that we haven't seen anything that proved he was even related to Don Cheadle's character, RYan Phillipe's character shoots a man and leaves the scene of the crime even though he is a police officer, the Persian shopkeeper honestly believing he had been saved by "an angel" when he shot blanks at a defenseless child (he was really shooting blanks, or was he too stupid to realize this?), people talking while a person is singing in the background(???), Chinese illegal immigrants stuck out in the streets, and hey, just for good measure, we find out that the African-American female receptionist is also a racist. Not to mention that it's SNOWING IN LOS ANGELES. Champ job, guys.
This film is a tired, preachy mess that is designed to pander to the lowest common denominator. Don Cheadle says in the beginning of the film that everyone is disconnected. What a load of bull that is. We only have twelve stereotyped characters making stupid decisions and interacting in idiotic ways.
Bottom Line: This type of issue has been dealt with far more effectively in other (and better) films. Maybe you've heard of a little film called "Do The Right Thing"? I'm giving this film 3 stars for the acting. Other than that, it's tripe.