Crash - The Burbanked Oscar Nominee Review

Within about 3 mouse-clicks, you can find a handful of opposing viewpoints on the strengths and weaknesses of the multiple-Oscar-nominated movie Crash. In some cases these opinions are angry, polarized and even downright mean. So in a film populated with characters who are angry, polarized and downright mean, doesn’t this indicate that writer/director Paul Haggis has done exactly what he set out to do?

Crash is Burbanked’s first Oscar-season movie review after the jump.

(Now this movie’s been out for a bit - long enough for me to watch it on DVD - but still, for those of you who are even more behind than me, spoilers may ensue. Read at your peril!)

In Crash, Paul Haggis has created about eight distinct stories of life in modern-day Los Angeles, binding them together through the conflicts of racism and ignorance. A white veteran police officer sexually assaults the wife of a mixed-race couple during a traffic stop; a pair of black carjackers wax philosophic over the ways and whys that they victimize whites; an Iranian immigrant both fights ignorance and practices it himself; a black detective suffers not just at the hands of the system that exploits him, but also from the damaged, bitter heart of his own mother; a rookie cop sets out to do the right thing, but then inadvertently gives in to the hate that surrounds him each day; and a white woman of privilege bitterly berates her husband for being insensitive to her racist demands - yet comes to wonder at her own isolation. Over the course of Crash, these stories and more intertwine, pass by, impact and generally collide with each other in terrifying and tragic ways. And while we are able to see progression and resolution in some of these characters, we are by no means let off the hook with the kinds of pat, happy endings that Hollywood usually creates for them.

If the people of Crash sound more like types than fully fleshed-out movie characters, it’s because they are. They are hyper-metaphors, stand-ins for our own most deeply felt fears and shortcomings. Crash is a story told as a story - it exists in a kind of stylized realism that is meant to reflect our world more than actually resembling it. The moment near the beginning of the movie in which an Angeleno says to another on a chilly evening “They say it may snow tonight,” we should be aware of two things immediately: 1) somewhere later in the movie we’re going to get a metaphorical snowfall and 2) the film we’re about to see should be taken seriously - but not literally. The mere fact that these dozen or so characters flow so coincidently in and out of each other’s lives in an area larger than 15 million people should be enough to clue us in that we need to relax our reality-meters a bit and go along for the ride.

And if we can do that, we’re in for a very good ride. Yes, parts of Crash feel heavy-handed, and others are absolutely heavy-handed - but the movie also evokes such sadness, such a sense of impending dread and finality that it’s very hard not to be taken in by it. To resist the strength of Crash is to also deny the power of Boyz n the Hood or even Grand Canyon - two other LA-based stories that examine the ways that we treat each other and the consequences of those actions. While both of those films are a bit better than Crash, Haggis can be forgiven for lacking the rookie passion of Singleton and the subtlety earned by Kasdan’s experience (Grand Canyon, in fact, is both more subtle and more fantastical, if such a thing is possible). Between this movie and last year’s Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby, Haggis seems more than willing to self-pigeonhole his talents to the service of bleak storytelling and the Important Hollywood Message Movie. It’s strong storytelling to be sure, and it may not please all of the people all of the time - but there is a place for it, because Important Hollywood Message Movies often end up being the Movies We Talk About at the Water Cooler. There are worse things to be known for than setting out to make a compelling movie that actually compels people to think and talk about grown-up subjects with each other - just ask a post-Pearl Harbor Michael Bay.

But is Crash Best Picture material? It’s a compelling, admirable contender - and to be honest, I haven’t seen the other nominees yet. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be catching up on at least the Best Picture contenders, as well as the Best Screenplay nominees. But my sense is that Crash only goes so far. It does stick with you, and clearly people feel very strongly about it (now quit your bickering, Ebert and Foundas!). There’s even speculation that the Crash Best Picture buzz is picking up steam and taking away some of that Brokeback Momentum. In the end, I think it’ll fall short of the finish line, but that’s okay. It’s a good thing to be a well-talked-about movie in any given year; but Best Pictures are supposed to be the ones that remain timeless. They’re supposed to reward repeat viewings, teach us more about ourselves than we think we already know. Crash, conversely, does a fine job of teaching us more about the things that we know we know. It’s a lesson worth learning, but also one that is a bit too easy for us to file away, diluted, back into the comfort zone of our daily lives where we studiously avoid thinking about such things as race, inequality and anger. Ideally we’ll count among Crash’s best achievements the way in which it will lend credibility (and more than a little box office clout) to Haggis’s next effort and allow him to develop and grow as a filmmaker - and that’s certainly no accident.