Good, but not as good as it thinks

Rating: 7/10 (20 August 2005)

Crash is a well-made, extremely well-acted (Dillon, Cheadle, Pena, Ludicrous especially) ensemble movie that inevitably brings to mind such multi-stranded efforts as Magnolia, Traffic and the best of Robert Altman.
However, it has been over-hyped as a movie that tears down taboos and doublethink, exposing the prejudice and inhumanity of modern L.A. Well, perhaps if the audience lived on the moon. The general message seems to be that most people, of all races are prejudiced or self-serving or both, but most of them have redeeming features as well. Duh. So a bored, rich housewife gets annoyed with the Hispanic maid. So a young, criminal black man gets tied up with conspiracy theories. So an Iranian guy who loses his shop goes a bit crazy. Nothing wrong with these, but to define Crash as brave or shocking is really overstating the case.
There are shocking moments (the stand-off involving the shopkeeper, the locksmith and his daughter); the young, upright cop's moment of panic; but they don't really tell us anything we don't already know. People are flawed. Well, who knew?