Crash & Burn


Words can't describe my white-hot hate for this year's Oscar-winning, joke of a film "Crash". I had heard mixed reviews about the film, and even recall wanting to see it in the theatre due to good reviews, but hadn't gotten around to seeing it until about a week ago. Despite the fact that I feel stupider for having watched it, I certainly don't regret seeing it. Now I've got a simple litmus test for every new person I meet: "Have you seen "Crash"? Did you like it?" If they answer yes to both of them, I don't need to waste my time with them anymore. Anyone who thinks this trite, contrived, self-righteous, over-acted, poorly written, cliche caricature of the current state of race relations in the United States is remotely good or accurate need not apply to be my friend. Or acquaintance.

I knew I was going to hate it from the moment Don Cheadle spews this absolute laugher of a line: "It's the sense of touch...Any real city, you walk, you're bumped, brush past people. In L.A, no one touches you...We're always behind metal and glass. Think we miss that touch so much, we crash into each other just to feel something."

Are you fucking kidding me? How did any exec read that cornball and think this movie was going to be anything but a total piece of shit? Don Cheadle, you may have kicked ass as Buck Swope in "Boogie Nights", enlightened people about a horrific tragedy in "Hotel Rwanda", but you should be forced to turn in your SAG membership for ever agreeing to be in this steaming pile of shit. Sandra Bullock, Brandon Fraser, and Matt Dillon? I can understand their washed-up asses being in this movie, but Cheadle, c'mon man, you still had some credibility. You should hang your head in shame.

So why all the hate for what seems like a socially-conscious, award-winning film? Let's just take a look at one of the storylines and analyze a few scenes.

Early in the film, we see a Persian man and his daughter at a gun store, attempting to purchase a firearm, and we're clued in from their conversation that said Persian man wants to protect his shop from those dangerous minorities. Fair enough. Of course, this man happens to be a hot-head, and the gun store employee is a cracker-ass redneck, or close enough. A heated discussion ensues, the highlights being the Persian man speaking broken English, yelling at the employee, with him firing back "Plan your Jihad on your own time, Osama!"

Now I'm not arguing that thoughts like that don't go through the heads of lots of people. I'm not denying the fact that ignorant, racist people exist. I'm just saying that very few people are as obtuse as EVERY SINGLE character in this fucking movie, blurting out the most excessively racist one-liners at every possible opportunity. Each scene tops the previous one, as if just one of these cartoonish portrayals of racism/bigotry isn't enough.

But let's get back to the previous scene. The Persian dude leaves the store and his daughter buys the gun and bullets, after the store employee refuses to give them their money back (one of the dozen or so inexplicable plot points in the film). She also purchases a red box of ammo, even after the employee asks if she knows what she's buying.

Cut to later in the film, where the Persian man's store was broken into, with him believing it was the Mexican guy who fixed his locks. He goes after the man with his gun in hand. Of course, right as he's about to blow the dude away, the guy's daughter comes running out to save her dad, thinking she's got an "inpenetreble cloak", as told to her by her father earlier in the film. While she's playing Secret Service agent to her father's president (in slo-mo with the corniest music imaginable), the man pulls the trigger, seemingly killing the poor innocent chiquita. But nothing happens; she and her father's lives are spared, magically.

What follows is not regret, guilt, self-loathing, or contemplation on the part of the Persian man, but happiness. If that's not bad enough, director Paul Haggis gives us a gratuitous shot of the box of bullets, for the absolute fucking idiots who didn't understand what happened. The box, of course, reads "Blanks". Thanks Paul, we needed to be hit over the head with the proverbial frying pan in order to understand that she wasn't actually wearing an "inpenetreble cloak".

The film is just a trainwreck. It's got the subtlety of a grizzly bear mauling. Every single character not only holds shallow prejudices, but is more than willing to loudly voice the stereotypes engrained in their pea-brained minds.

I would have loved to been on-set during the filming. After each take, I'm sure everyone on set just thought they were making a ground-breaking, conscious-raising statement, sure to induce tears from everyone in the theatre. I'm sure the thought "We're changing the world" was a common one during production.

The saddest part of all is that this film does nothing but trivialize the very idea of prejudice and racism. It paints such a laughable picture of today's social problems that it's easy to find comfort in what is a somewhat scary and depressing reality. Perhaps if the film's tone had been turned down to only slightly-unrealistic, it would have accomplished what it had set out to do. Instead, it remains a relic for future generations to laugh at. I know I did.