Pros: multi-faceted characters, realistic situations and interactions, poignant storylines, powerful acting and directing
Cons: not for the faint-hearted or those overly concerned with being politically correct
The Bottom Line: unflinching, starkly realistic portrayal of racial prejudice in all its many, ugly, forms; addresses a problem few care to acknowledge, with intelligence, insight, humour and compassion
Rarely have I encountered such a powerful and thought-provoking movie as ‘Crash’. Canadian Paul Haggis (who wrote the screenplay for Best Picture Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby) co-wrote ‘Crash’ with Bobby Moresco. In his capacity as director, he has delivered a brave and polished movie that deserves a wider audience as well as critical acclaim. But it is the very provocative nature of ‘Crash’ that all but guarantees it will not be getting either, nor will it be garnering any awards any time soon. And that’s a crying shame, because ‘Crash’ is a movie that everyone should watch. It is so potent that few will be left unmoved by it. But it is not an overtly emotional movie, far from it. Though there are climactic movie moments that pull out all the stops, some of the most powerful scenes are also the most understated, but that only makes them that much more devastating.
Critics who find ‘Crash’ edgy and preposterous or who see all the characters as stereotypes either missed the whole point of the movie, or perhaps live in a never-never-land where prejudice does not exist and where people of all colours co-exist in perfect harmony. Wherever that may be, it’s not post-9/11 America, and certainly not contemporary Los Angeles where people of different race, creed and colour struggle to survive as best they can in a climate of barely-concealed fear, intolerance, and in some cases, downright loathing. Melting-pot? Don’t make me laugh. The very word is a slap in the face of countless immigrants and inner-city African-Americans.
The screenplay is a multi-hued tapestry woven from the colourful threads of storylines that follow characters of different races as they make their way through a couple of days in L.A. which, as Don Cheadle’s character, Det. Graham Waters, points out at the beginning of the movie, is not quite like any other city.
“It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”
The alienation is palpable. There’s Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges (much of the humour comes from his character) telling Larenz Tate how he hates being stereotyped as a black thug, then turns out to be a thug. There’s Sandra Bullock as the wife of a District Attorney (played by Brendan Fraser), their SUV stolen by Bridges’ and Tate’s characters. Bullock’s fearful character distrusts both her Hispanic maid and the Latino locksmith who comes to change the locks, while her husband worries about losing the black vote if their brush with the thugs comes to light.
The locksmith’s just having a hell of a day. The Persian shopkeeper (who keeps getting harassed for being an Arab) doesn’t understand that it’s his door that needs changing rather than his lock, and when his shop gets burgled and the insurance company refuses to pony up, he takes a gun to the locksmith’s house where he confronts the man and his young family.
Meanwhile, a white cop has shot a black cop and the DA, still needing that black vote, decides to throw the white cop to the wolves. But Don Cheadle’s character and his partner (played by Jennifer Esposito) discover some possibly mitigating circumstances. Of course, the DA doesn’t want to know this, so he blackmails Cheadle’s character (his younger brother is a ne’er-do-well petty criminal) into not looking any further.
There’s also another pair of cops (played by Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillipe) who stop an SUV driven by an African-American television director (played by Terrence Howard) and his wife (played by Thandie Newton). Dillon’s character molests the wife while the husband watches helplessly. We then see the husband enduring prejudice at work, and a downward spiral that leads to a highly-charged scene that could have ended tragically were it not for the rookie cop (Ryan Phillipe) cutting in with a very courageous act.
Subsequently, storylines merge and interlace, with characters crashing into and out of each other’s lives, causing mayhem and destruction in some cases. Characters who acted heinously are shown to have redeeming qualities, while characters who had acted honourably fall apart and destroy others and themselves. I think this is what most people disliked about the movie. A bad guy didn’t get his comeuppance while a good guy got a terrible fate he didn’t deserve. But life is never black and white and people often don’t get what they deserve, so that’s pretty realistic.
Some characters are devastated (the look on Don Cheadle’s face when he heard what his mother had to say to him about his little brother darn near broke my heart) while some, like the Persian shopkeeper and Ludacris’ thug did learn a lesson or two. The lines spoken by Terrence Howard to Ludacris in the SUV: ‘You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself. Get the h’ll out of my car.’ are spot on.
The movie is in no way preachy and if the writers have a message, they’ve communicated it in a very off-handed manner. But that’s fine with me, as who wants to be spoon-fed anyway? And the message is likely to be somewhat different to different people. Anyway, to me, the message is this: Racial prejudice is deeply ingrained into our psyches; it is part of human nature, but we cannot allow it to proliferate; we must try to suppress it as it can be devastating to the people on the receiving end. It comes from fear, from not knowing about one another, from always keeping each other at arms’ length. Because we’re so ignorant of each other, it’s easy to stereotype. And when people act according to stereotypes, they reinforce them--they’re not doing themselves any favour.
If there’s a solution, it’s not offered on a silver plate, but one would think that it would take a lot of education and goodwill to address the issue and redress it.
I should point out that there’s a lot of petty racism in the dialogue which, though offensive, is utterly realistic, so don’t let anybody be put off by that. When we close our eyes and ears so we don’t see or hear the bad stuff—you know what, the bad stuff persists; it doesn’t go away.
The ensemble cast is pitch-perfect, and if I have to pick favourites, it would have to be Don Cheadle. If you loved him in Hotel Rwanda, he will break your heart before the end of ‘Crash’. His storyline is one of the most poignant, as is that of the Latino locksmith (played by Michael Pena) whose fairy tale to his little girl is subsequently played out in one of the most harrowing scenes in recent movie history. I defy you not to gasp. In fact, I defy you not to be moved by this excellent movie. Highly recommended.
A stellar cast collides haphazardly in this insightfully written roundelay of racism rage and redemption which takes place over the course of one day ...More at Family Video
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