Ham-fisted and heavy-handed, and recites a message that becomes a lecture

Rating: 5/10 (30 June 2012)

I was looking forward to my long-delayed viewing of Paul Haggis' Crash. I thought it would provide me with an experience along the lines of when I watched Falling Down, a breathtaking portrayal of societal arrogance, where I was riveted and infuriated for much of the film. Instead, Crash is a by-the-numbers film about America being a melting pot of racists, waiting to be set off in a cliché set up, and appears to be more of a stock lecture instead of a truly eye-opening film.
I must give respect and well-earned shock to the film for winning Best Picture, over critic/fan favorite, Brokeback Mountain. Its win was probably one of the biggest stuns next to when Annie Hall bested Star Wars in 1977, or when Forrest Gump stomped both Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption for the same title in 1994. Crash is definitely an interesting piece, setting its sights on the controversial nature of racism and its victims and alarmists, but manages to plod along in its runtime, rarely reaching heights of admirable status, and manages to be questionably exploitative and, dare I say, racist in itself.
The film follows numerous characters in a forty-eight hour period in Los Angeles where they are met with racial confrontations, have their personal outlooks and insights tested, and eventually, have their stories intertwined with one another in some way, shape or form, connected by the central focus; a car crash. Such characters are a black LAPD officer (Don Cheadle) who is long estranged from his mother, a white District Attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his spoiled-rotten wife (Sandra Bullock) whose car was hijacked by two young black men (Chris "Ludicrous" Bridges and Larenz Tate), a racist white police officer (Matt Dillon), who molests a black woman (Thandie Newton) right in front of her husband (Terrence Howard), a Hispanic locksmith (Michael Pena) trying to keep his family business straight, an uptight Persian immigrant (Shaun Toub), and an optimistic cop (Ryan Phillippe), who works with Matt Dillon's character.
Right off the bat, there are far too many underdeveloped characters here. The way we are greeted with them is awkward, too fast, and lacks much substance. In an ordinary anthology film with intertwining characters, take Adam Rifkin's criminally underrated and near-perfect film, LOOK for example, we spend enough time to get to know the characters, form opinions about them, and actually become intrigued and somewhat astonished at how they meet and engage with one another. Crash breathlessly tries to juggle a dozen loose stories and find creative ways for them to connect with each other that it doesn't have time to adapt its subjects into believable people. It's almost encouraging its own problem by stereotyping its characters.
The film portrays all of its characters as on-the-edge racists triggered by a fairly mild, forgivable, and misunderstood circumstance where every conclusion is jumped to and nobody is smart enough to think something over before acting. Perhaps Crash is trying to show us that that, specifically, is the problem, but it is gone about in such a ham-fisted, heavy-handed way that we know what the film is trying to say, but we simply don't care and are tired of being talked down to for close to two hours.
With that being said, it must too be stated that all the actors here do a wonderful job at, at least, trying to create versatile, believable characters, although few succeed. Sandra Bullock is the standout here, simply giving it her all and showing us true character-acting versatility in not only her role-choices, but her creative and involved performances. Ludicrous isn't as outgunned as I thought he'd be, Don Cheadle does exceptional work, Matt Dillon is great here, and so is the rest of the cast. But inevitably, I'm reminded of the one-dimensional characters they play and the truly vacuous background that plagues each and every one of them. A quick look at other reviewers scattered across the internet show that their shallowness has neglected people to notice the good acting behind them.
The film concludes with one of the lamest, most uncreative Hollywood endings in a blue moon, showing us easily the most schmaltzy, conventional, unbelievable, cringe-inducing ending a film about racism could possible give us. Even with dedicated performances from a barrage of different talents, Crash connects their characters' stories in such a contrived and facile way it's distracting, is plagued by levels of sheer incredulity, and occupies an end scene of complete and total folderol. As a whole, it plays like a heavy-handed lecture by a representative of the "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?" committee.
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, Brendan Fraser, Terrence Howard, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillippe, Larenz Tate, Shaun Toub, and Michael Peña. Directed by: Paul Haggis.