Poor Writing but great cinematography

Rating: 3/10 (1 July 2020)

SUPER BRIEF SPOILERS, ALMOST NONE
Paul Haggis co-wrote and directed this movie in 2004, about racism, prejudice, stereotypes and revealing people's true colors. Watching this today, it is relevant to our world, I guess, but also very different. Haggis writes about many characters that are not exactly connected, and their personal stories about racism, prejudice, and stereotypes. You have the racist cop, the interracial couple between two detectives, the Hispanic man who gets in a lot of bad situations, two African-American men who cause trouble, and prejudice white woman Sandra Bullock. All of them have some racism or stereotypes or struggles with the world between people. Things escalate, and we see how bad things really can get. However, this movie manages to be overwhelmingly dramatic as well as underwhelming in terms of story.
The movie is so overdramatized and exaggerated with chunky dialogue, people's views of each other, and story structure. The movie manages to be super cliché with the plot. Some elements and dialogue are laughable because they are so dumb or coincidental. Now, besides the over-dramatic filming, slow sequences and build ups (such as a well-put together scene about a highway accident) the movie is actually underwhelming because the story and characters could have been taken in such a different way. There could have been SO MUCH more drama or development between characters and story. However, it is played safe and most things just carry on.
Before I wrap up, some positives are the cinematography and editing. The camera work is great, shots are beautiful and intense. The highway scene, for example, is really well done. Some acting is really good, Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton specifically.
The movie just never really wraps up. Haggis wanted to show that everyone has prejudice in them, no matter what they have gone through, if you encounter a racist cop as a minority, you'll be scared! That part is relevant to today, but there is just so much going on in this movie, that there is almost NO time for development. There is barely any character development, maybe Matt Dillon a little bit, but that is so brief. And in the end, racism just carries on like it did before, leaving us to just be like "oh, I guess we have no hope of solving racism!"
Feels more like a poor PSA than a movie.