It probably meant well

Rating: 3/10 (27 March 2006)

Perhaps I went in with expectations that were too high, because I liked "Million Dollar Baby," and everybody I spoke to who had seen this movie was in love with it. It is nowhere near as important or complex as it thinks it is, however, and functions as a bizarre kind of escapism. The film flaunts that it is about racism, that it reveals to us that people who don't consider themselves racist contribute to the problem to such an extent that the only people who might be stupid enough not to understand are the characters in the film. The narrative structure (which resembles "Short Cuts" or "Magnolia" or whichever of those you like) does not add much to the film; I suspect Haggis wanted to illustrate that these seemingly separate problems were systemic, but the screenplay is too calculated to succeed at this, and, by separating screen time between so many characters, they become oversimplified (with the possible exception of Don Cheadle's character, who is at times as simplistic as the other characters, but at times more real). Many seem more like one-dimensional characters with multiple personality disorder than fully developed human beings.
The most irritating thing about "Crash" is that its ideas in and of themselves are valid, but Haggis is incapable of using them effectively. It is sadly realistic that a white police officer (or anyone with a gun, for that matter) who does not consider himself racist could shoot an unarmed black man, making the assumption that the black man is armed and dangerous with little evidence other than racial profiling. What is not realistic, however, is that a police officer would pick up a hitchhiker (and if he were a racial profiler, certainly not a black man in a poor neighborhood), and Ryan Phillipe's screen transition is not convincing. It further calculates in a painfully symbolic scene, made even more painful by its use of slow-motion, in which a little girl is believed to be killed, and the sacrifice saves everyone.
What was Haggis thinking with the slow-motion scenes? With the exception of Wong Kar- Wai's "In the Mood for Love," slow-motion should never be used under any circumstances whatsoever. It is almost a signed confession of the calculation of the screenplay.
I think it says something for the significance of this film that discussions around "Crash" are debates over the believability of the screenplay, and not in terms of its subject matter, but its dealing with it. I have yet to hear one intelligent debate about modern racism in the United States that this film has inspired.