Film Review: Crash (dir. P. Haggis, 2005)

The recent film, nominated for Best Picture, not the kinky 1996 David Cronenberg movie.

Many of the reviews of this movie focus on the importance of cars in the L.A. of the film; the title of the film suggests that cars are important to the theme, because in English today, cars, planes, operating systems, and markets are about the only things that crash. But my sense is that the movie is more about the ubiquity of guns. The plot is exceedingly complex, but the point of the movie is that this set of characters interact over the course of 36 hours--the black cop (Don Cheadle) and his Latina partner (Jennifer Esposito), the white D.A. (Brendan Fraser?) and his bitchy wife (Sandra Bullock), the racist white cop (Matt Dillon, who could win for Best Supporting here) and his partner (Ryan Phillipe), the Latino locksmith, the Persian/Iranian shopkeeper, his wife and doctor daughter, the black t.v. director (Terence Howard) and his wife (Thandie Newton), the black carjackers, including the black cop's brother and the other one, played by Ludacris (?). And almost everyone is the victim of either a crime or a car accident; a few players only commit crimes. But the number of times that the conflicts that are detailed become potentially deadly because of the ubiquity of guns is really interesting.

I won't even try to summarize the plot. Let me just say that this movie took awhile to "grow" on me. The early scenes might lead one to think that the movie is going to be a series of cheap jokes, ethnic stereotypes, and cliches. But it's a lot more. (This is not the best review, I'll admit. But this movie may be more than this man can review.)

The one theme I want to point out: The white characters in the movie are all, in the end, dependent on some person of color, even if they don't really realize it. And the persons of color in the film are all, to some extent, pushed around by the Man, i.e., the white man (or white woman, in the case of bitchy Sandra Bullock). The theme of the movie is, at some level, that we are all in this multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society together, even if we can't all get along. So that means that we keep crashing into one another, sometimes hurting one another--in the film, mostly hurting one another--but sometimes helping one another. The end of the film [spoiler alert] where Ludacris sets the Asians free from the van (not much of a spoiler, if you didn't see the movie) illustrates how even the worst characters can help others, even when doing so isn't "in his interests." The scene where the "good cop" shoots Don Cheadle's brother shows that even the best characters can hurt others. The interactions are so complex, but the point is, I think, that every action in the plot has consequences, for good or ill, at the next point in the plot--consequences for the other characters and, in the end, for the characters themselves.

Btw, in the previous post I predicted that Crash would win Best Picture. Given the options, Crash is the movie that more people saw, and the least controversial choice. No one saw Capote (not even me, not yet), and the other nominees are too hot for the Academy to handle, in my opinion. My guess, the Academy will reward the politically controversial films in other categories and go with Crash for Best Picture. It may be political, too, but it's not controversial by the standard set by Munich, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Brokeback Mountain.

I'll be live blogging at least some of the Oscars, at least until I fall asleep.