Good Picture? Yes. Best Picture? No way.

Rating: 7/10 (6 March 2006)

I like this movie. It gives the viewer something to think about. It has a few outstanding performances (Matt Dillon, Ludicrous) and some weak performances (Ryan Phillipe). All that aside, this movie never departs from feeling didactic and --well--like you are being subjected to a moral tale.
Other movies have done this: If These Walls Could Talk, American History X, those safe driving videos I watched in drivers education years ago. It's not wrong for movies to solicit a morality. It's just difficult to escape that and find an artistic harbor, too. (I feel that American History X did a much better job getting cinema legs under it then Crash did, for that matter.)
Overall, this movie was good but never reached the free-wheeling levels of cinema brilliance that movies like Brokeback and Capote did this year. The "Academy" giving the nod to this movie is laughable and misguided. The academy's vote makes it painfully obvious that 3000 of the 4000 Academy members live in Los Angeles and don't think for themselves.