Disappointing, derivative, and manipulative.

Rating: 3/10 (18 March 2006)

***SPOILERS*** One of the worst 'Best Picture' winners in years, and that's saying something. If you want to see a good movie about race, watch 'Do the Right Thing' again (Or if you want something in LA, try 'Falling Down' or 'Colors'). This lame and manipulative set of vignettes is a watered down version of LA long-cast-list films 'Short Cuts', 'Grand Canyon', 'Traffic' or 'magnolia' - take your pick, they're all ripped off here - in support of a not-too-profound thesis: "You can't judge a book by it's cover". Not exactly the most thought-provoking take on race relations. Each character is introduced in a situation staged to create one type of perception, and then later contrived circumstances show us that our first impressions were wrong. That's the whole movie, one easy cinematic trick... rinse and repeat. What shocked me most was the many storytelling continuity errors. A cop stumbles across a car-jacking in progress and one of the would-be jackers flees. The jacker is later seen hitch-hiking his way home and is picked up by... the same cop, now off-duty. The car that was getting jacked was being driven by a man presumably going to see his wife, who had earlier been involved in a near-fatal car accident. But his wife's well-being is put on hold while he asserts his rights to the cops who pulled him over, dresses down the other car-jacker after giving him his gun back, and stops to watch a car (that, coincidentally! the cop who pulled him over set fire to after killing the other car jacker... you know, later, when he was off duty) burning. While watching the flames engulf the car, he calls his wife to tell her that she loves him. That's nice honey, are you coming home any time soon? I kind of had a bad day, pinned under a flipped, burning car and all. Did anyone even consider hiring a script editor on this film? It's hard to fault the actors, most of them are quite good. It's easy to imagine a good film in here somewhere, but what wound up on screen is just a sloppy mess which alternates between tragedy and sugar-coated sentiment. Time will not be kind to 'Crash' either - this is NO classic. Unlike, say, Cronenberg's 'Crash'... now THAT was a thought-provoking movie.