So awful - it's embarrassing! Der!

Rating: 1/10 (9 September 2005)

After hearing so many great reviews, I was really looking forward to watching Crash last night. I had heard that it was unflinchingly real, thought-provoking, and bold. It was indeed thought-provoking--all throughout the movie, I kept wondering how in the world can such a horribly pretentious, unrealistic movie get so many raves? One review, which I wholeheartedly agree with, comes from Peter Debruge of the Miami Herald. He writes "Contrived, obvious and overstated, Crash is basically just one white man's righteous attempt to make other white people feel as if they've confronted the problem of racism head-on." This was exactly how I felt while watching this movie. The characters were predictable one-trick ponies, the dialogue was preachy and unrealistic, the situations and coincidences were preposterous. It seems like it was written by a man whose only experience with racism comes from what he's read in books and seen on TV. He has very little in touch with reality! Everything had an air of melodrama and it felt as if I were watching a theatrical production (a poorly produced one, at that). For a movie about racism and stereotypes, most of its main characters and situations were stereotypes themselves! I found myself saying "Der!!" out loud so many times. Most of the actors, for what they have to work with, are pretty good, and there are a couple of scenes that caught my attention and didn't induce involuntary eye-rolling. But as a woman of color living in Los Angeles, and having watched this with my best friend (a white male), we both agree that this movie really hasn't got a clue as to what the real world is actually like. It's like a book-smart kid who thinks he can get street smart by reading and watching movies and television--it just doesn't work.