well made but missed the mark

Rating: 5/10 (7 May 2005)

I'm all for a movie that deals with racial issues, but Crash is not the movie to see for this reason. All the racial tensions in this movie are very shallow issues that don't seem to work in today's modern world. The character's stories do tie in together well and they did an okay attempt at dissecting stereotypes but in the end I don't feel like the characters made a complete change in their way of thinking and racial stereotypes were reinforced. I just don't think they went as far as they could have or needed to go with the story and characters. The ending was happy despite tragedy which seems to irk me for some reason. It was hopeful, however, but I don't think their mindsets changed too much so what was there to be hopeful about? As well as the photography and mise en scene of the film, I have to say it was excellent. There were some amazing shots in this film. Lighting seemed natural and flowed well from scene to scene. To me, it was very grainy which I enjoyed. I'm not sure if this was intentional or if thats just how I saw it. If you are an inspiring director of photography or editor, this is a film to study for these reasons. So overall, didn't like the flow of the story but I enjoyed the look of the film.