Good acting, plausible assumption, implausible situations

Rating: 8/10 (22 March 2006)

Like some others, I did not see this film until it won the best picture award. Having been a Brokeback Mountain partisan myself I wanted to see what all the controversy was about. I rented Crash from the video store,watched it and didn't particularly like it. Then it came to my local theater (post Oscar hype I suppose) and I went to see it again. It certainly gains on a big screen, and I was better able to follow the interweaving story lines. It came up in my estimation.
I thought the acting was uniformly very good, Matt Dillon in particular whose performance was deservedly nominated for an Oscar. Trouble was all the actors were working with characters that, while real, were overdrawn almost to the point of caricature and stereotype--the saintly locksmith, the spinning pol, the "oreo" TV producer, and the mother whose "baby" is a major felon to name a few.
The film's theme is racism and the unfortunate truth that it is in us all. So far so good. Most people I think are also aware that good and bad exists in all of us. But this film delivered the message with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It may have been the filmmaker's goal but was not particularly to my taste.
I also found the plot situations somewhat implausible and contrived, particularly the subplot concerning officers Ryan and Hansen. Ryan molests a woman in one scene and rescues her in the next? Hansen witnesses the molestation, later saves the woman's husband from being shot, and subsequently kills another character by mistake? The final scene between the Iranian shopkeeper and the locksmith smacked too much of deus ex machina. And I also left the theater wondering how Officer Hansen was ever going to explain the torching of his car.
Despite all I've said here, I think that if you mute the preaching, suspend belief about some implausible situations, and enjoy the acting that this film is a good one though not a great one. As for its best picture nod, I disagree--I'm still a Brokeback Mountain partisan.