Not so deep

Rating: 4/10 (14 March 2006)

I admire Paul Haggis's intentions in making "Crash"--I'm sure he honestly believed his movie provided penetrating insights into urban American race relations. I understand that he wanted to show how people's lives can intersect in fascinating ways, how sometimes it takes a great shock in order to jolt us out of our patterns of thinking and reveal our common humanity. Unfortunately, the methods he uses to get this message across are rarely subtle and never as profound as he thinks they are.
The problem is that "Crash" never goes any deeper than pointing out that everyone has the potential to be both a racist and a caring human being. Rarely does it suggest why its characters automatically revert to racist thinking whenever they are stressed or angry. Only Matt Dillon's character is given some motivation: he has a monologue describing his hatred of affirmative action. But we never learn why most of the other characters are so quick to hurl racial slurs at one another--or, for that matter, why the Mexican locksmith is the only character in the film who is not racist, despite living in a community full of bigots.
I've written "Matt Dillon's character" or "the Mexican locksmith", rather than using the characters' given names, because those names are so unimportant in the script. (For the record, they are "Officer Ryan" and "Daniel," respectively.) The characters are blatant types, with a few surface contradictions but little real insight into how race and ethnicity has affected their lives. I would love to know how Don Cheadle's character ended up a successful detective, while his brother is a criminal. Or what prompted the Persian storekeeper to buy a gun in the first place. We learn how the privileged white Jean (Sandra Bullock) feels about her Latina maid--but how does the maid feel about her employer?
"Crash" is also poorly structured and directed. For me, the best moment in the film is when Officer Ryan rescues Christine (Thandie Newton) from her car: the situation is so emotionally charged, and the direction so simple and powerful, that it works in spite of itself. But this scene, which ought to be the climax of the movie, instead comes about an hour into it. And the impact of a later scene, which could be equally powerful if handled correctly (it involves Daniel, his young daughter, and a man with a gun), is counteracted by Haggis's decision to demonstrate to us that this is an emotional moment, rather than letting us figure it out for ourselves. He goes overboard with ponderous music, slow-motion, and shots of agonized, crying faces. When he later employs the same music and slow motion as Jean falls down her staircase, the effect is so anticlimactic, it's laughable. Haggis also seems not to know how to end the movie: he takes too long tying up the various plot-threads, and strains too hard for a sense of redemption and hope.
Despite these flaws, "Crash" did keep me continually engaged, even if some of the story lines required me to suspend my disbelief to an absurd degree. The large cast of actors do the best they can with Haggis's superficial script, and the Los Angeles landscapes are nicely filmed in a palette of ambers and blues.
Racism is an issue that society (and the movies) still often refuses to discuss. It's a pity, then, that when a movie about racism does get made, it's as shallow as "Crash." Although individual scenes are effective, individual lines are witty, and some of the questions raised are provocative, the overall effect is unsatisfying.