Invisible Hand

Rating: 5/10 (10 October 2006)

Finally caught up with this. Because of the multiracial LA theme I was dreading another "Grand Canyon" (for my money one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies ever made): earnest and self-congratulatory, a salve for the love-me-I'm-a-liberal soul. "Crash" is a far better film than "Grand Canyon" but ultimately stoops to the same beatitudes.
"Crash" does have some powerful scenes and well drawn characters, who are refreshingly neither good nor bad but struggling to be human in a hostile environment. It taps into something important (which goes beyond racism): how hard it is to be free of hate and distrust, how they poison us all. But any realism the film pretends to is undercut by the tidiness of the plotting, which is as mechanical as any slamming-door French farce. The script is TOO well constructed. Every character shows his or her racist side; then, within twenty four hours, each is handed a chance at redemption, which they predictably take. Only Matt Dillon really struggles with it, and that's more the actor than the script, and only one main character goes in the opposite direction. If life were like this movie, Mohammad Atta would have, as a dying gesture, helped a little girl in the WTC find the exit door.
Some say this is a very Christian movie, and they're right in that it's redemption mad and there's an invisible hand (God or Paul Haggis) pulling off miracles right and left. It's too bad "Crash" doesn't have the nerve to hold off on the easy resolutions, and the soothingly ethereal choral music. It's too bad a film with such an important subject couldn't serve it up straight, without the transcendence. The solemn spirituality of films like "Crash" is false comfort.