A good, dark drama

Rating: 6/10 (18 November 2005)

Crash is basically a film that pretends to be more important than it really is, and that's the one big flaw that hindered my enjoyment of it. It really is a very well made drama, and an impressive directorial debut from Haggis, who obviously learned a lot from his collaborative work with Clint Eastwood  Crash is nearly as dark and gritty as anything the master had done. A cast of second rate Hollywood stars and B-list character actors  which includes Matt Dillon (who hadn't had a truly impressive dramatic role in more than a decade), Don Cheadle (who made his breakthrough the very same year with Hotel Rwanda), Brandon Frasier and Sandra Bullock among many others works surprisingly well together, and the film is a strong and professionally made drama with some very good dialog and excellent atmospheric cinematography.
Crash is good, but it doesn't have what it takes to be truly great, and I wouldn't take anyone calling it one of the most important films of the year very seriously. The Altman-ish mish-mash of characters whose separate stories interact in surprising ways has become overtly fashionable in Hollywood in recent years, and sometimes it seems to me like the main objective is to avoid the nuisance of developing interesting individual characters; in fact, not one character in Crash  including Cheadle's and Dillon's, both of whom give undeniably remarkable performances  is interesting enough to be considered a main character, and I found myself completely detached from all of them. The film tries to get across a message about the racial tension in America  and some of the images and stories are definitely shocking, moving and effective, but the message is ultimately vague, and it often seems like a pale and weak imitation of Spike Lee. At any rate it never at any moment manages to be half as powerful and potent as anything Spike had made.
Crash is definitely a good drama that's worth your time, but it's not one of the best or most interesting films of the year. At its best it's as good as the weakest of Clint Eastwood's films  and if you've watched his films then you know that's high praise. Don't believe the hype; Crash is a very good film but it's no news. If you hated Magnolia, 21 Grams or anything of that genre then you're not likely to get that much out of Crash either.