it isn't great, still it is quite good

Rating: 7/10 (23 June 2007)

"Crash" isn't the great movie many people make it out to be; it probably doesn't deserve it's spot in the top 250. It's in many ways formulaic, it's manipulative in parts, sentimental in others, and very unsubtle. So the gushing reviews one finds of it are unwarranted. On the other hand the hatchet jobs many critics and would be critics give it are equally if not more unjustified. This isn't a trite little exercise in manipulation and cheap, fake uplift like "American Beauty" or "Life is Beautiful;" this movie's heart is in the right place and it does have something important to say. Beyond that the way there's much to be said for the way the characters are drawn. With the exception of Brendan Fraser's slimy, one dimensional prosecutor none of the characters are truly good or evil (too bad about Fraser, he's an underrated actor and deserved a bit more to work with); like most human beings they're a complex mix of both. The way the movie plays with our expectations by casting a character as a villain or a hero and then turning those expectations on their head is quite admirable and unsettling, as the fact we sympathize with and even admire such flawed characters forces us to look at aspects of ourselves we might not like too much. And the fact that the people we had pegged as villains often go on to act nobly, makes us see and acknowledge the humanity of people we dislike, which is certainly a good thing for any movie to accomplish (not to be trite, but it's a mark of truly humanist cinema that it humanizes). Still the movie isn't perfect; the situations Haggis uses to engineer these turn arounds in our expectations are far-fetched and more than a bit artificial. Also, while the characters are believable and compellingly drawn, their actions sometimes seem forced and artificial- not in the sense that they act in unbelievable ways, but they act in the ways they do rather too quickly. Haggis also adds to the air of artifice by being just a bit too slick as an author; things are set up just a bit too neatly in a good many cases. Not that artifice is in itself bad, but it shouldn't show itself as such. Finally, the sheer number of characters means that they're not quite as developed as one would like. Still most of "Crash's" faults are the result of noble ambitions it doesn't fully achieve, and a flawed movie that aims at something great is a far better thing than a perfectly crafted mediocrity.