Crash

Rating: 3/10 (18 April 2020)

Crash
"Crash" follows the lives of many different ethnic people and their injustices. The audience is led to follow this chain of racial injustice cues, blatant ignorance from each character, and unfortunate series of events.
To many, Crash tackles many repressed, psychological stereotypes. Every character is infused with hate and "instinctive" racism, but I don't buy it. In my opinion, everything felt rushed, forced, and absurd. Just like Magnolia, Crash intertwines the lives of what could be 10+ characters. With Crash, however, the story, editing and pacing is sloppy and I often forgot about half of them. Many of the scenes made zero sense and felt mashed together. Stupid actions had no consequences. There was no sign of community and thought. The sappy music didn't help reinforce the raw emotion depicted.
Crash, for me, is fatally flawed by its inability to redeem any of the characters. Each character displays no sense of awareness, logical thinking, and sympathy for the other. The performances were weak, and I disliked every character. As Crash attempts to shock its audience by including provocative characters, I only find it obnoxious and pretentious. If I want a good film about broken lives and how they intertwine, I'll just go watch Magnolia. It's not that this movie is the worst I've ever seen, but it sure as hell tries way too hard. Perhaps this film attempted to be counterintuitive by making the characters unlikeable solely on their racism, but I found them fake as hell, stubborn and robotic. There were multiple cringe-worthy scenes that I couldn't help but laugh at.
Crash won the award for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Film Editing. I don't mean to be the millionth guy to hate on it, but it did not deserve the praise it received from the academy. It attempts to tell a compelling story about redemption and character development, but I didn't care for any of the characters from start to finish.
3/10