I hear false sentiment ringing / crashing everywhere

Rating: 7/10 (29 May 2006)

I have issues with this movie.
Crash has two absolutely superb scenes that sealed its Academy Award (the car crash rescue and the locksmith daughter shooting) and many other riveting and highly contrived but well-directed "crashes". Yes, contrived, overwrought, and largely unbelievable. Ridiculous interactions designed for maximum emotional impact. This movie doesn't teach us anything about real race relations and I didn't find its confessional style to be anything more than convenient crutches for artificial conflict. The absurdities boggle the mind (extremely/overly literate car jackers, a DA's wife who throws racially tinged vitriol designed to unelect her husband, a producer's seemingly intelligent but down-on-the-boner wife who thinks her husband could somehow magically handle the well-armed LAPD (better speak to Rodney King!) and his equally unbelievable 180 degree turnaround with a gun in his face...the list goes on and on).
This whole movie resembles Pulp Fiction in feel and incongruity, except that Crash takes its subject matter far too seriously (a mistake *not* made by Q. Tarantino) and Crash bloviates its subject matter like a miasmic Santa Ana.
Yet, I can see why this won Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain, for that movie, too, rings its own falsehoods, but much more quietly. Had just the directors been reversed, Brokeback would have turned into an amazingly (and much more interesting) campy romp/slutfest and Ang Lee would have won more academy awards that should be possible.