Well-intentioned, often gripping, but too facile to be honest

Rating: 6/10 (21 August 2007)

As has been stated, there have been many incendiary films made about race and prejudice in America, notably Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing." There have also been numerous acclaimed pictures about the urban African-American experience made by filmmakers such as John Singleton ("Boyz in the Hood") and the Hughes Brothers ("Menace II Society"). There have also been numerous films made with large ensemble stories and multiple intersecting characters, especially in the films of Altman ("Nashville" "Short Cuts") and P.T. Anderson ("Magnolia"). And thus, pureeing all of the aforementioned together with some heavy white liberal guilt, you get "Crash." "Crash" has some outstanding acting and a clever structure, but it's also too tidy and too easy--the stereotypes presented on screen are too often just that: stereotypes. Moreover, the film reduces almost every character to their worst instincts and racist impulses (even when doing so defies rationality), and the film thus sacrifices logic and depth for scenes of emotional confrontation, hysteria, and shrillness. (The film's prejudices, interestingly, revolve almost exclusively around race, and never touch on religion or sexuality.) Worth seeing for some knockout work from Cheadle, Dillon, Newton, Howard, and others, but it's a darn shame that Spike Lee's oeuvre doesn't get the respect it deserves (nor, for that matter, did Altman's--at least not from the Oscars) while those who should know better slobbered over this picture. (Several of my white liberal friends loved it and spoke of it as being "SO important"; notably, several of my African-American friends hated it.) The highly mixed reviews worldwide that greeted this film when it came out are always going to follow it around like a stain, reminding folks that its bewildering current lionization (and the vitriol often simultaneously directed at "Brokeback Mountain") reveal more about prejudice than anything in "Crash" truly does. I'd be very interested, in a mirror of the Oscars, how many people really vote FOR "Crash" as opposed to voting AGAINST "Brokeback."