A Stereotypical Insult To The Viewers About Racism

Rating: 2/10 (7 May 2008)

This is without a doubt one of the worst movies I have ever seen in it's contrived preachy message and fabricated plot situations. There is absolutely no subtlety to it whatsoever. Almost every conversation in this movie is a direct racial reference.
On top of everything it has an angry and rude Asian woman with a faked Asian accent who crashes into another woman's car, and who says "blake" instead of brake, which is the worst extent of this films crass stereotypical way of presenting racial tension. This movie tries to tell us that white women cower in fear when they see black men on the street in a white neighbourhood. It has black men complaining about being treated as thieves and criminals directly before they steal a persons van. How ironic, thanks for clubbing us over the head with it. It has policemen pulling over a black couple for no charge after being radio called to stop a completely different car, then they pervertedly frisk the man's wife, and then let them go when the husband apologises, as if policemen have nothing better to do than show how racist they are and risk their reputation over absolutely no crime committed. It has a racist cop telling his rookie partner "you may think you have morals but you will find out you have no idea who you are" as if being a cop predisposes you to be racist.
Later in the movie, the same woman is trapped in a burning vehicle, and the first person who arrives to help her is the same officer who frisked her. She fears his help when he is the only person to save her. How... poetic? I would be surprised if that situation happened even once in north America. Later there is an angry Iranian man who tracks down a Hispanic locksmith, demanding he pay him for "not properly fixing the lock" holding a gun to his head, when really he was too stupid to understand the locksmith when he said that the door itself needed replacement. That is as ridiculous as me going to Bell phone company with a gun demanding for a refund on the phone I was returning for which they were giving me a hard time, and the Iranian man is a small business owner with a family, and he would throw his life away for that? At this point the Hispanic mans daughter runs out of the house, and jumps up in her fathers arms just as the Iranian man shoots at point plank range, but she is not shot because her father gave her an invisible bullet proof blanket that a fairy gave to him "the actual explanation given by the movie" If this scene does not seem contrived and seems like awesome poignant poetry, then you will like this movie. If not, There are many other such ridiculous scenes, with roughly 5 groups of unconnected people all bumping into each other supposedly at random as plot development, which in addition to the heavy handed preachy dialogue, will annoy you.
Everything about this films message is so "in your face" that it doesn't challenge the mind of the viewer whatsoever or leave anything up to perception or opinion. Every single scene is clearly GOOD or BAD. The answer is always "Yes... That is racist" there is no context shown behind the racism and no grey line between actual racism and perceived racism. What made directors like Sam Peckinpah great was his ability to invoke emotions and to deal with strong subjects without needing to blatantly state them a dozen times over in his films.
This is the kind of movie that has a big effect on people who deeply want to feel empathy regardless of realism and plausibility. This movie functions only as an allegory, and the plot situations are so unrealistic that to someone like me it seems almost surreal. My dislike of this movie stems from the fact that i find it difficult to find poignancy in a clearly relevant and troubling subject (racism) when much of the examples in the movie are unrealistic or stereotypes and situations that are very unlikely to happen in real life and act merely as poetry. The fact that this movie has such a high rating seems to prove that ANY movie about racism will get a high rating and is enough to show that it is nothing more than a mediocre piece of cinema. I strongly recommend films such as "The Liberation Of L. B. Jones" or "In The heat of The Night" over this film.