a poorly-written, racist, unintelligent, pretentious lecture on racism

Rating: 1/10 (26 April 2006)

Crash (2004), its a monument to mediocrity. The film, which preaches racial tolerance, is, in of itself, racist. Filled with every single stereotype and cliché known to mankind, this film stumbles through its 1:45 minute run with poorly written dialog and half conceived subplots. This film is nothing new, nor original, in any way shape or form. For every good piece of dialog (Michael Pena's heartwarming scene with his daughter, all though it may have just been the actor) there are about 10x more scenes of awful dialog (the rest of the movie). For every good actor (Don Cheadle, Terrence Howard, Michael Pena) there are about 10x more bad actors (Brendan Fraser, Ryan Phillipe, Sandra Bullock, Thandie Newton, Matt Dillon...). The perfect example of this is the scene with Michael Pena, his daughter and the Middle Eastern store owner. You see the little girl running, and you know she's going to die, and your heart is wrenched and you feel awful even though the scene is filmed in the corniest way possible. And then, in the most pathetic way, the girl lives, and the scene loses all of its power and becomes foolish. The movie is almost unbearable to watch, with such favorite lines as "You think you know who you are, but you don't." and "I'm angry all the time, and I don't know why!" being spouted off at every turn. The worst part of this god-awful movie is Haggis' need to spell out every single situation and emotion for the viewer, instead of letting them do some of the work themselves. That condescension and obviousness turns the film into a racist, unintelligent, pretentious lecture on racism.
Rating: 1/10