Flawed But Admirably Ambitious

Rating: 7/10 (1 November 2016)

Crash is a solid movie for me, it's not amazing but I do think that it's got very good intentions and found the story to be very interesting and while I do agree that it shouldn't have won Best Picture that doesn't make it a bad film. One thing that nobody can deny about this film are the excellent performances by its entire cast with Michael Pena, Terrence Howard and Matt Dillon being the standouts. Pena gives a fragile and heartwarming performance here I loved his scenes with his daughter and you truly feel for him with the racism he has to deal with. On the opposite end of the spectrum Matt Dillon completely falls into his hostile and racist character but the best thing about his character was the fact that you understand why he is the way he is the fact that he has not got the right but the right reasons for his feelings and quickly turned from a hate able character into an intriguing and sympathetic one. Terrence Howard plays a perfect coward he's become used to the casual racism and discrimination that he has to put up with on a daily basis and watching him let it all happen while he wanted to do something was truly tear jerking especially in the scene with his wife. Technically this movie is fantastic Paul Haggis did an excellent job directing this film he panned along very nicely and he's back enough to left the actors to perform on their own without ever getting in their way with needles cuts and movements. This film won an Oscar for its editing and its very well deserved they knew when to cut at just the right time and managed to keep the film very well balanced. However this film is far from perfect for one, it lacks subtly instead of allowing the actors to just emote through their performances the writers felt the need to have them go on with big monologues or outbursts. When certain characters snap it just didn't feel earned while you certainly understand some frustration or anger it just seems as if they've lost the will to live and it just feels so out of place. An I found the ending of this movie to not really fit with the rest of the film it feels to much like a sitcom from the 90s. However I thought they did do a good job at closing out all of the character arcs in a satisfying way.
Crash is not perfect it's got some narrative issues and some over the top moments and it. Certainly should not have one best picture against Munich (one of my favourite movies). But it has fantastic performances and a great message that I could really get behind.
78%/B+