Crash/BURN!

Rating: 2/10 (20 May 2005)

I may be the only one in the world (apart from my girlfriend) who thinks this movie is an absolute waste of celluloid and talent. There. I said it. Crash fails in almost every respect. Let me explain:
1. We get it. Racism is bad. Very bad. And what's worse, is that a lot of people are racist in the world. HOWEVER, the smarmy, one-dimensional portrayal of racism in Crash is at best a simplistic cop-out and at worst patently offensive to every race and audience member involved. Crash fails to acknowledge that the vast majority of people living in the world (or at least the ones willing to pay $9 to see a movie about racism) understand that judging people based on skin color is a horrible, despicable thing. And while I know racism lurks in every corner of this so-called society, I am not silly enough to think that hate and prejudice are always the result of active decisions made by spiteful, hateful people. It can be systemic, an exoticization, a fetishization, a categorization or any other number of bigoted acts. Crash however, would have you believe that racism is merely the result of people who are hurting on the inside lashing out at the nearest, most differently-pigmented person they can find. In Crash one gets the idea that every character wakes up in the morning with a to-do list that reads, "shower, pick up some milk, oppress a honky/darkie/towelhead/spic etc." One leaves the theater thinking that with all that time spent hating people, making racist comments and waging general race war, Crash's characters probably wouldn't have much time left for hobbies.
2. While some may see in Crash another film in the collagist vein of Magnolia, Short Cuts etc, I see a million moments of utter plagiarism. Need I even discuss the films penultimate 15 minutes in which a song not quite sung by Aimee Mann underscores cross-fading closeups on characters who are not quite singing, as not-quite-frogs (read snowflakes) begin to fall from the sky!?...For those of you have not seen Magnolia and completely missed that reference, I apologize. But seriously, I thought Garden State's cinematic thievery was bad......
3. Tony Danza makes a completely ABSURD cameo appearance. Go get em' Tony. Hi Sandra Bullock, my name is acting, remember me, we met a long long time ago...oh and say hi to Brendan Frazier for me will ya...Enough said.
OK, I'm starting to slam the keys of my computer just thinking about this pedestrian, uninsightful, insulting, vacuum of a film. If you want a movie that more fully and effectively explores racism, go see Revenge of the Sith.