User reviews

There were a few exciting, tense vignettes between the characters of "Crash" but there were also some tendentious, heavy, hackneyed things that really stood out: Don Cheadle's voice-over, ostensibly deep (the voice of conscience in the film), Sandra Bullock's hugging her maid towards the end of the film and confessing to her that she (the maid) was actually her best friend, the really quite sappy Latino whose gets killed when trying to save her father (the "red-cloak" piece of malarkey), the condescending treatment of Asians (especially the atrociously accented Korean woman at the beginning), the long sequence involving Brendan Fraser in the courtroom (it didn't seem relevant and was slow, the Terrence Howard/Thandie Newton confrontation (a lot of sparks but not really that compelling except for the melodrama), and so on. That the Matt Dillon turns to the Ryan Phillipe character when they break-up as a police team, "You think you know who you are but you don't have any idea, et. al." is gratuitous. Like so many lines in this film, it comes out of nowhere.

Not subtle, not a work of art, but plenty of adrenaline and action around a hot-button issue. Which is probably why less sophisticated, younger movie-goers (I just can hear them saying "Really cool, man, it'so SO-O deep") seem to have gone for this film. Most critics apart from Ebert and a few others were very lukewarm, if not downright very critical about this film. Believe me, it doesn't hold a candle and is definitely not in the same category as "La Strada," "Gosford Park,"...or last year's exceptional "Brokeback Mountain." Three much better films with superior screenplays/plot-lines, and character development are "L.A. Confidential," "Mullholland Drive," and "Chinatown."

Dialogue clichés, lots of high-speed car chases, clichéd-characters, lots of movie-stars doing uncharacteristically small turns, and Hollywood's favorite liberal subject matter (racism) are a recipe for Hollywood acclaim and middlebrow American audience approval. This film made only about 33% of its receipts from outside the U.S., a pretty weak showing. "Brokeback Mountain"'s receipts overseas accounted for more than its domestic grosses.

That it won the Oscar is NOT that surprising when such middling fare as "Beautiful Mind" (pure schlock except for Russell Crowe's acting). "Gladiator," "Braveheart," etc. won.

(This is definitely the last time I'll even pay attention to the Oscars).

At "Crash" at least breaks the stereotype that all African-Americans are an unfairly persecuted, noble minority.

I tried to ignore the voice in my head not to rent it. I had heard from multiple sources that "Crash" was the worst film to ever win Best Picture--worse than even "The Greatest Show on Earth" back in 1952. Yet it had won Best Picture, which must mean something. I fished out my rental card.

Minutes into the start of the film, I knew what I was in for: a narcissistic celebration of the city where the film takes place--LA. No, not the LA of reality, where human beings transcend stereotypes and live in a three dimensional world of development and originality. Fact is, LA really has no "reality." Norman Mailer once wrote that the city, America's grandest suburb, appears to have been built by some self-perpetuating television studio.

Like the city itself, "Crash" is a made-for-TV spectacle filled with character archetypes, gun-crazed hysterics, and clangy car wrecks. It is an accurate depiction of the psychic space many Angelinos are proud to call home--the stupefying, stifling world of television.

Defenders argued that "Crash" has one 'fresh' element: it at least acknowledges the fact that we live in this stereotypical, flat world. Yet "Crash" does not rebel against this world--it perpetuates it. Instead of challenging its own moviescape, "Crash" keeps indulging us with more car bangs, more flat archetypes, more cheap, overt racism. Look out, Fox TV.

In March 2006, on behalf of a society increasingly defined by such pulp, the celebrity class paid its dues: it awarded best picture to this shrill, depressing film. "We are all racists" they said, in an attempt to mask their glossy pulp with banal condescension. This film is a great step toward making their generality a reality.

Some critics lamented that Crash's Oscar victory spelled the end of the Academy's "relevance." Hardly. The win heralds a new era at the Academy. The Oscars, once a serious, national ceremony celebrating the art of individual expression, has fully succumbed to the televised suburbs. The narcissistic celebrities of LA no doubt toasted their win with martinis. Meanwhile, a nation that used to be known for its individuality, intelligence, and love, continues to lose.

On the positive side, this movie has heart and good intentions, which is more than can be said of most. However any resonance or authenticity is lost in screenplay gimmickry, preachiness and manipulative direction. It's efforts to "say" something are simplistic at best. The movie tries to pack in somany issues that all it can do is scratch the surface, hence it is a shallow film populated by one-note characters behaving in mostly unbelievable ways.

There are no quiet moments in the film; it has all the subtly of a dump-truck. Everything is so exaggerated and sensationalized there is no room for imagination and one is left, at the end, with nothing more to think about. The movie does all the thinking for its audience, which personally I find rather insulting.

Also it is hard not to think of "Magnolia" when watching this film. "Crash" is also a film about an ensemble of characters interconnected by tragic and amazing events over one day in LA. "Crash" is derivative at best when compared. I also find it really confusing that Paul Haggis gave his film the same title of another contemporary American (well Canadian really) film, though certainly not widely seen, nonetheless with a very distinctive reputation.

I understand the popularity of the film and all its awards and nominations: people love gimmicky movies. The gimmick in "Crash" is the interconnected characters storyline. You've seen it done before in much more original and seamless ways. This movie pushes the envelope to extraordinary limits of "suspension of disbelief" to pull off this trick. It is audacious certainly. Some may find it magical; I found it appalling - a storytelling technique standing in for meaning. Hollywood loves this tactic. You could say it is even the very foundation of the Hollywood Narrative. Like political discussions, though tiresome, they keep even the most intelligent minds coming back for more.

In terms of performances, honestly only Terence Howard and Ludicrous (of all people) actually stood out for me. Brendan Fraser continues his reputation as the most inept and laughable actor in American film - how is it possible that someone with so little talent can be cast in ... anything? His agent must be the devil. Most of the performances are so one-note it's hard to be involved with them. Some are even one-scene. William Fichtner - who is he supposed to be? Why isn't this just a scene between Don Cheadle and the DA? Then you could have lost Brendan Fraser, replaced him with William Fichtner, AND this pivotal scene would have actually made sense.

In terms of direction, I can't believe anyone respects this kind of heavy-handed, unfocused work. The use of slo-mo in this film is so gratuitous and unskilled ... I couldn't believe it honestly. Paul Haggis is at the bottom of my list. And he has music playing beneath almost every shot of the film - a sure sign of a lack of confidence behind the camera. Mark Isham's synth-heavy score is pretty cool for a while until the wailing female vocal comes in and it becomes a parody of itself. It sounds like the same wailing woman you've heard in 30 other movies. Then the film ends with two of the worst songs I have heard in a major motion picture. For a movie about diversity, these songs come straight from the collection of a middle-aged white guy who keeps the dial on the easy listening station. Lame, lame stuff.

Nothing amazes me anymore when it comes to the popular tastes of movie-goers, but I am disappointed. If you like your emotions manipulated instead of engaged, and storytelling gimmicks instead of authentic characters, this one's for you. If you appreciate any kind of subtlety in a film, I would not recommend this.

Very simply, "Crash" is the worst film to win the Oscar for best picture. Ever! "Crash" may even be the worst film to be nominated for Hollywood's highest honor. Condescending, contrived, and trite, this is the work of hacks. The screenplay violates one of the simplest but most important rules of writing in ways even a C student in screen writing would be unlikely to do. Ever heard the command to SHOW, NOT TELL?

Since neither Paul Haggis nor his co-conspirators have the talent to show the effects of racism on individuals and society, they tell. And tell. And tell. The actors might as well be reciting a newspaper column, one written way back in the 60s, a decade when this pretentious, self important piece of tripe might have managed to fool even the wisest among us that it had some relevance. Then again, the 60s was the decade of "In the Heat of the Night," not to mention the more obscure "Pressure Point," both of which looked at race relations with unblinking honesty and a knowledge of how people really act, think, and talk. The characters in "Crash" are laughable stereotypes who rarely utter one word that sounds like something that would emerge from the mouth of a real human being.

Not since "Doctor Doolittle" scored an Oscar nomination for best picture in 1967 (depriving "In Cold Blood," "Cool Hand Luke," and several other better films of that honor) has Oscar made a blunder as bad as giving his top prize to this dim-witted dud.

Similar to his other critically acclaimed epic MILLION DOLLAR BABY, Haggis seems to think, the easier, the simpler, the less complex a film the better for audiences. Similar to what he does with MDB, Haggis simplifies the story until it's down to basically broth but complicates the actual execution, a dozen or so characters careening around in LA "crashing" into each other with racism as a focal point.

The film focuses mostly on Graham (Cheadle) a detective within the LAPD (a great performance!) and his navigating a corrupt organization. There are side stories, including solid performances by Matt Dillion and Terrence Howard, but all in all the scenes are so contrived the meaning is laughable.

This movie is just another preachy Hollywood "lesson" about white racists and how they always victimize minorities. I found the characters to be unrealistic, and the intertwining themes to be contrived. Race is mentioned in every scene in a very heavy handed lecture oriented presentation. There is little action and most of the drama is focused around white folks complaining about minorities and minorities complaining about white folks. A victim of the bad HMOs is thrown in for good measure. If you watch movies for entertainment rather than a lesson on how you should think, then you can skip this one.

If not for some good actors doing their best with a terrible script, this movie would only get one vote. But my oh my what a terrible script. All I could think is that Haggis went and saw Short Cuts and Magnolia and figured nobody else in the world did. During the snowfall scene I was thinking that he must have ran over-budget and couldn't afford frogs because the scene was so blatantly stolen from Magnolia, down to the Aimee Mann sound-alike playing in the background.

So many different things to hate about this movie, but the most obvious is the simplistic view of race relations in America. Quite frankly, I am amazed Haggis ever lived anywhere near L.A. The movie seemed like it was made by a high school student in North Dakota (no offense to anyone from North Dakota, just saying it's quite a ways, culturally and geographically, from L.A.) who decided to make a movie about race relations in L.A. based on what he learned from watching television.

Although this film is well-made and well-acted, it is an exercise in self-congratulations on it's acute awareness of the state of race relations in this country, heck even the world! Unfortunately, as I felt the hammer of moral authority hitting my skull with every exchange of dialogue, I just kept thinking - "people don't talk like this. This isn't what would happen! What is with the faux-Tarantino dialogue between the two carjackers? (How clever!!) Why doesn't someone slap Sandra Bullock? Couldn't ANYONE see what was going to happen with Ryan Phillipe - I saw it coming in NEON Lights! This movie provides easy emotions to hard problems, and everyone can leave the theater talking about how much they have learned, and nothing changes. No thanks - even PULP FICTION had more to say about the true state of race relations than this movie. This film doesn't ring true.

The acting was very good in this movie. Certainly the number of stars was impressive.

I can't say much about cinematography because it was simply shot on the streets of a city so no luscious grand sunsets etc. I guess what was there didn't distract from the story. The style did fit the story, it's just that the cinematography didn't stand out as it often does in other movies.

I certainly believe all of this goes on in our world. It seems there are prejudices of many kinds. We all can treat each other so poorly. This movie deals with prejudice head on. There was a hint of individual recovery in the movie, but not enough to convince the audience that anyone was making life changes. I just don't understand why it was put together.

I don't really care to have each and every bad personality trait or behavior assembled into a two hour showing. As I said there was a hint that recovery and change might be coming, but at the same time that idea wasn't followed through. There was plenty of misguided things going on even at the end to make someone subject to prejudice to become angry. Which I'm sure wasn't the aim of the story.

I will say I was never really interested in this film before from the time I saw the trailer. However my friends and Roger Ebert both could not stop telling me how much they enjoyed it. After viewing it I couldn't have been more let down. I wanted to to Paul Haggis's house and ask from my 4 bucks back because Blockbuster wouldn't give it to me, and it also hit me I would never have those 2 or so hours back again in my lifetime.

Sure I am aware of the racial inequalities in the United States anyone who is not is kidding themselves or have lost their conscience in various reality shows...I digress. I wouldn't have minded a movie about racial tension if it wasn't so cheesy and overacted, when watching Crash I thought I was watching that one scene in mystic river where Sean Penn was screaming for his daughter for 2 plus hours (but then again you folks here may have liked that), I think if Robert Altman had seen this movie he may of had a stroke which wouldn't have allowed him to show up at the Oscars for his achievement award.

When Paul Haggis was described as a "force of nature" I almost broke my jaw yawning. Million Dollar baby was pretty good but I don't really like womens boxing or Hilary Swank getting her face bashed in...

Anyway I say this impartial to any other Oscar nominated movie...Let's just be honest with ourselves this was just a bad movie that carried a message few have addressed on the silver screen!

I may be the only one in the world (apart from my girlfriend) who thinks this movie is an absolute waste of celluloid and talent. There. I said it. Crash fails in almost every respect. Let me explain:

1. We get it. Racism is bad. Very bad. And what's worse, is that a lot of people are racist in the world. HOWEVER, the smarmy, one-dimensional portrayal of racism in Crash is at best a simplistic cop-out and at worst patently offensive to every race and audience member involved. Crash fails to acknowledge that the vast majority of people living in the world (or at least the ones willing to pay $9 to see a movie about racism) understand that judging people based on skin color is a horrible, despicable thing. And while I know racism lurks in every corner of this so-called society, I am not silly enough to think that hate and prejudice are always the result of active decisions made by spiteful, hateful people. It can be systemic, an exoticization, a fetishization, a categorization or any other number of bigoted acts. Crash however, would have you believe that racism is merely the result of people who are hurting on the inside lashing out at the nearest, most differently-pigmented person they can find. In Crash one gets the idea that every character wakes up in the morning with a to-do list that reads, "shower, pick up some milk, oppress a honky/darkie/towelhead/spic etc." One leaves the theater thinking that with all that time spent hating people, making racist comments and waging general race war, Crash's characters probably wouldn't have much time left for hobbies.

2. While some may see in Crash another film in the collagist vein of Magnolia, Short Cuts etc, I see a million moments of utter plagiarism. Need I even discuss the films penultimate 15 minutes in which a song not quite sung by Aimee Mann underscores cross-fading closeups on characters who are not quite singing, as not-quite-frogs (read snowflakes) begin to fall from the sky!?...For those of you have not seen Magnolia and completely missed that reference, I apologize. But seriously, I thought Garden State's cinematic thievery was bad......

3. Tony Danza makes a completely ABSURD cameo appearance. Go get em' Tony. Hi Sandra Bullock, my name is acting, remember me, we met a long long time ago...oh and say hi to Brendan Frazier for me will ya...Enough said.

OK, I'm starting to slam the keys of my computer just thinking about this pedestrian, uninsightful, insulting, vacuum of a film. If you want a movie that more fully and effectively explores racism, go see Revenge of the Sith.

I had some hope that his film was going to be okay. It has a great cast and some opportunities for good acting. It showed me for the first time that Sandra Bullock can really bang out a good hard scene when sh'es given one. It's the kind of movie where every actor and actress is lining up to be in it like an Altman or Woody Allen movie. But my brain kept firing off throughout the film "something's wrong. This isn't working." I suppose the problem was the script and partly the first-time out director. Every character was angry at everyone else in every scene. From psycho cops to paranoid gun-toting store owners to... everybody else. Except Don Cheadle, he just wore this Bob Newhart frown all the time. Maybe cause he realized the movie (he took part in producing and perhaps financing) was turning into a lemon before his eyes.

A few interesting social insights were raised during the film, but as another IMDb'er pointed out, it felt like a bad version of MAGNOLIA (although in my opinion, the original version of MAGNOLIA was lousy). Also reminiscent of SHORT CUTS - which was a much better film.

When the dynamic of a film is constant tension and anger, there's really nowhere for it to go. I am mystified that the diversity of taste of today's film viewers and amateur REviewers places this film anywhere in the IMDb top 250. This list is pretty meaningless. I'm 46. CRASH must be hitting a chord of banality with the under-30 crowd. Hope they learn that gun-toting and prejudice are BAD! There BAD! And redemption is GOOD! It's GOOD!

Oh - and interesting idea to name it after a then eight-year old Cronenberg film. So odd.

Chris H.

This is without a doubt one of the worst movies I have ever seen in it's contrived preachy message and fabricated plot situations. There is absolutely no subtlety to it whatsoever. Almost every conversation in this movie is a direct racial reference.

On top of everything it has an angry and rude Asian woman with a faked Asian accent who crashes into another woman's car, and who says "blake" instead of brake, which is the worst extent of this films crass stereotypical way of presenting racial tension. This movie tries to tell us that white women cower in fear when they see black men on the street in a white neighbourhood. It has black men complaining about being treated as thieves and criminals directly before they steal a persons van. How ironic, thanks for clubbing us over the head with it. It has policemen pulling over a black couple for no charge after being radio called to stop a completely different car, then they pervertedly frisk the man's wife, and then let them go when the husband apologises, as if policemen have nothing better to do than show how racist they are and risk their reputation over absolutely no crime committed. It has a racist cop telling his rookie partner "you may think you have morals but you will find out you have no idea who you are" as if being a cop predisposes you to be racist.

Later in the movie, the same woman is trapped in a burning vehicle, and the first person who arrives to help her is the same officer who frisked her. She fears his help when he is the only person to save her. How... poetic? I would be surprised if that situation happened even once in north America. Later there is an angry Iranian man who tracks down a Hispanic locksmith, demanding he pay him for "not properly fixing the lock" holding a gun to his head, when really he was too stupid to understand the locksmith when he said that the door itself needed replacement. That is as ridiculous as me going to Bell phone company with a gun demanding for a refund on the phone I was returning for which they were giving me a hard time, and the Iranian man is a small business owner with a family, and he would throw his life away for that? At this point the Hispanic mans daughter runs out of the house, and jumps up in her fathers arms just as the Iranian man shoots at point plank range, but she is not shot because her father gave her an invisible bullet proof blanket that a fairy gave to him "the actual explanation given by the movie" If this scene does not seem contrived and seems like awesome poignant poetry, then you will like this movie. If not, There are many other such ridiculous scenes, with roughly 5 groups of unconnected people all bumping into each other supposedly at random as plot development, which in addition to the heavy handed preachy dialogue, will annoy you.

Everything about this films message is so "in your face" that it doesn't challenge the mind of the viewer whatsoever or leave anything up to perception or opinion. Every single scene is clearly GOOD or BAD. The answer is always "Yes... That is racist" there is no context shown behind the racism and no grey line between actual racism and perceived racism. What made directors like Sam Peckinpah great was his ability to invoke emotions and to deal with strong subjects without needing to blatantly state them a dozen times over in his films.

This is the kind of movie that has a big effect on people who deeply want to feel empathy regardless of realism and plausibility. This movie functions only as an allegory, and the plot situations are so unrealistic that to someone like me it seems almost surreal. My dislike of this movie stems from the fact that i find it difficult to find poignancy in a clearly relevant and troubling subject (racism) when much of the examples in the movie are unrealistic or stereotypes and situations that are very unlikely to happen in real life and act merely as poetry. The fact that this movie has such a high rating seems to prove that ANY movie about racism will get a high rating and is enough to show that it is nothing more than a mediocre piece of cinema. I strongly recommend films such as "The Liberation Of L. B. Jones" or "In The heat of The Night" over this film.

I'm curious as to the target market for this film. My wife, mother and I walked out of the showing of this film after 30 minutes. I just don't get the point of distributing a film that promotes the origins of stereotypes. Don't we all know where the stereotypes came from? Don't we also know that there are people who continue to believe in those stereotypes? Don't we also know that there are those who fit the stereotypes? As a society, have we not progressed past many of the stereotypes and attitudes portrayed in this film? In large, the stereotypes and attitudes as portrayed in this film are outdated. Being an African American male, living in the south and working in an industry that very few blacks choose as a career, I encounter racism daily. However, it is more sophisticated and not nearly as blatant as what was shown in this film. If attitudes like that still exist in L.A., then that city is far behind the rest of the country in terms of race relations and racial attitudes and behaviors. This film will do more to hurt progress of race relations that it does to improve them. I intend to go back to see this film with the hope that at some point during the movie, I'll get the point and the value.

I'm glad I didn't pay full price to see this one. Seems to me that all law abiding, decent people, of whatever race, ought to be offended by this one. Personally I'm sick of talking about racism- and this movie shows that there's examples of it by ALL of the "races" here in America. I don't see how this movies will raise conversation levels about stopping racism. The only "good" idea it presents is to get more information before making decisions. But, seems to me that out to be taught in families, from birth on. Not a movie I think should represent Oscar in years to come.. Personally, I think they ought to bring back Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Moviea are for entertainment. Church is for moral teaching. And, I don't like Brokeback Mountain either. Why didn't the Academy nominate Nicholas Cage's treasure hunt movie? It might not have been great ART, but it certainly was entertaining.

This film wants to just touch your heart, it doesn't care how to get there it just does it by any means necessary and thats what angers me about this film. OVER dramatic that it is far from realistic reminds me of Babel but babel is so much better and far more real life like. in the first part we seen two African Americans talking completely logical about some racist factors and how stereotypes affect them etc... them suddenly take out their guns and steal a car. so all what they said was completely pointless, and i lost respect for the film in the very beginning and even more as its passed by, it gets so stretched that i didn't even feel any sympathy at the end. so if u are a person of reason just ignore this movie.