Over-rated? Well, OK...But still good!

Rating: 7/10 (14 April 2007)

Let me be blunt...Crash won best picture because the Academy did not want to give it to Brokeback Mountain. It's a good film, but not the best of 2004. And the Oscar for the script is also a bit of a stretch. The editing Oscar, however, is well-deserved.
The script and the multiplicity of plots are full of exaggeration. This bothered me at first, but as the interconnected plots began to reveal themselves, I was drawn in. The cinematography and the performances of the ensemble cast are exceptionally good, but the plot - frankly - seems more like a collection of 30 minute TV detective show plots all tied together by a few threads and themes than a post-modern masterpiece.
The theme is primarily racism, and it is exaggerated and overdone (in some of the plots and characters) almost to the extremes of Do The Right Thing. But Crash is no comedy, and in its tragedy, some truths about prejudice in general are revealed. The film also ties together many other themes which are less well examined. The cast of characters have a bewildering array of problems which they must sort through or yield to.
A few of the performances really stand out: Don Cheadle, Michael Pena, Matt Dillon and Karina Annoyave are particularly impressive after my first viewing. The film is really a long string of vignettes which appears to take place over a fairly short period of time (one of the many rather unbelievable aspects of the plot). Each character is followed briefly for the resolution or advancement of the subplots in which they are involved and then it is on to the next. Yet the film does not quite achieve the level of post-modern semi-coherence that, for example, Magnolia, Inland Empire or Slacker did.
Some of the scenes are unforgettable. Matt Dillon's epiphany as he rescues a woman from a flaming car wreck - both cinematographically and in terms of performance - is a masterpiece.
I recommend this film. Although the whole film tends to be over-the-top, and the script creates characters that are neither wholly likable nor truly credible, it does a nice job of balancing its nightmare/fantasy elements with the reality of the human condition. It also brow-beats its audience a bit - and then follows up with redemptions, sacrifices, and commitments to humanity. Finally, if you enjoyed Babel, you are likely to enjoy Crash - structurally and dramatically very similar films set in very different places and with very different characters.