The Worst Best Picture

Rating: 1/10 (12 March 2006)

"Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away (Sigourney Weaver in Aliens (1986))?" Or have I crossed over into some alternative "Twilight Zone" universe where ugly is beautiful and bad is good? On March 5, 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did something so inexplicable that my head is still spinning. The Academy voted one of the worst films ever made, "Best Picture." You heard me right, "Crash" is one of the worst films ever made. No, "Crash" isn't bad in the way of "Plan Nine from Outer Space." "Crash" is bad because it thinks it is so good and that its message is so important that it bears repeating over and over and over again until everyone gets it. But what is the message of "Crash?" There seems to be some confusion about this aspect of the film which I will clear up for you. In its simplest form, the message of "Crash" is, people can be categorized into racial stereotypes and it is understandable that we are prejudiced towards them. For example, the film shows us that all young black men are carjackers and criminals and it is perfectly justified for white women to fear them. All Asians, but especially Asian women, are bad drivers and talk funny. Another example is that all white cops are prejudiced against blacks. Even white cops that appear to be good on the outside are all racists. When the least bit frustrated white cops will molest black women instead of kicking the dog, and white cops will shoot young black men in the blink of an eye for simply reaching in their pocket. Rich, white women all hate Hispanics and treat their Hispanic maids like dirt. Black women are all drug addicts on welfare or have funny names. Okay, maybe that's only one of the messages of the film. I guess another message of "Crash" is that everyone is prejudiced towards some race and that includes the writer, director, and producer. Well, to be fair, the writers (Haggis and Moresco, director (Haggis), and the many producers are just prejudiced toward blacks, Asians, and Persians; they have no problem with Hispanics. Hispanics are the only good people in the film and have no prejudices. Oh, I forgot! Hispanics are prejudiced against bad driving, funny talking Asian women. Another "Crash" message is that, if you're having a bad day, if you're father is having health problems, of course you're going to be a racist. After all, isn't everyone? I know you're confused now because you and so many others were tricked by the film into believing that it was against racism. Don't feel bad because the writers and director of "Crash" use every trick in the book to manipulate you into thinking that, because they had some noble cause for making the film it is appropriate to use racial stereotypes. After all, the Academy had no problem with it so why should you.
Okay, so the message of "Crash" is that racial stereotypes exist and everyone is prejudiced is kind of disgusting, but does that in itself make it one of the worst films? No, there are countless other flaws with the screenplay that make this film one of the worst. The only positive thing I can say about the script is that it is going to be a great teaching tool to show students what not to do when writing a screenplay. For example, in the very first scene of the film, Don Cheadle and his partner, Jennifer Esposito, get into a minor car accident. Cheadle then says the following, "It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." Can anyone explain to me why the Academy awarded this "Best Original Screenplay?" It's like it was written by some pretentious high school student trying to show off to the teacher.
Besides the clunky, pretentious dialog, the screenwriters overuse irony to a degree I can't remember seeing in any other film. It's like they are going to hit us over the head with irony until we just know what great writers they are. After this film, Congress should pass a law limiting impossible ironic coincidences and ironic twists to no more than two per film. Hefty fines should be levied for each one over the limit. By my count, there are a minimum of 15 ironic coincidences or twists in "Crash." How many can you come up with? Maybe this could be a fun party game like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
I want to give one more specific example of the many problems with screenplay, but I'm hard pressed to talk about just one. Maybe it should be the carjackers, or maybe the invisible cloak or the second car crash. I just can't decide. Well, I'll just end with snow. On at least a few occasions, different characters in the film mention that the weather calls for possibility of snow in Los Angeles (the last time it snowed in LA was 1962). At the end of the film, white flakes fall from the sky, but they are the ashes from a burning car which was the site of a racially motivated murder. I'm not sure what the screenwriters had in mind with this scene, but I'm sure it was another heavy-handed allusion to something very deep. Maybe it was the ashes of racial hatred raining down on the city? And again, the Academy voted this Best Picture.