"Crash" brings nothing new to the table

Rating: 4/10 (31 May 2006)

My '4' is motivated primarily out of my admiration for any filmmaker who wants to tackle a major social issue with his art. Too few do that, though it seems 2005 was a bit of a rebound year for political pictures. Also, I think "Crash" would have made a solid first two episodes of a TV show. (Maybe after a season, I might have gotten to know the characters.) Some decent acting, some nifty editing.
Those things aside, I must say that this was incredibly difficult to get through. I saw it in September '05 after I'd heard good things about it, and I was very excited to see it (as I always am with smaller pictures that get good reviews). But almost immediately, I could tell this screenplay was going to be painful.
"Blackest thing you've ever done is watch 'The Cosby Show'!" "At least I didn't do it with the equestrian team!"
Or something to that effect. I mean...really? Is that really the dialogue? And in what universe do people verbalize *every* *little* *racist* *thought* that comes into their heads? The most pressing problem with contemporary racism is that people refuse to even acknowledge their own racist tendencies, not that people say "spic" too much. Prejudice is something much more elusive than offensive words.
And the characters. Here he/she is doing one thing, and now here he/she is doing something that appears to be...the antithesis! End of character arc. What school did Mr. Haggis go to that allowed him to think this was acceptable screen writing?
And then the over-arching message of the movie: Racism is bad, and we should all work to end it. And we can! If we really, really try!!! Bold message in 1965, but do you have anything new to add, Mr. Haggis? No? Then why am I watching your movie? Maybe if I thought about race like a child (and apparently some people do), I might have found this movie worthwhile, but I don't, and I didn't.
The fact that this beat four outstanding nominees for Best Picture speaks, ironically enough, to the prejudice of Oscar voters against a movie that actually does bring something challenging to the table, be it that the struggle to inform as well as entertain via television may have been lost (Good Night, and Good Luck), or that being a great artist can mean manipulating people and selling your soul (Capote).
Neither of those messages made voters feel good about themselves, though - and "Crash" did.