Crash

Review by Jason Gaston

 While watching this movie, I was reminded of a song. It's a cute little ditty from a Broadway show called Avenue Q called "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" where several puppets sing and dance while discussing incidents of racism that they have committed in their lives. Nothing major... just things like wishing that Mexican busboys would learn to speak English or telling black jokes.

All throughout Crash, this song kept playing over and over again in my head as if it was written specifically for this film. Hey, it's a little cutesy and sing-songy, but it does fit this movie perfectly. Perhaps, even, it says a little more about race relation than Crash manages to. In the very least, it's a little more sly for the song is like a scalpel while Crash is a blunt club.

For, indeed, everyone's a little bit racist - at least in Los Angeles - and, as Crash introduces us to a detached DA and his race-fearing wife, a Mexican locksmith and his family, a couple of philosophical carjackers, a racist cop and his more ideological partner, a black TV director and his cop-fearing wife, a family of Persian immigrants, and a couple of LA detectives, we learn just how racist everyone really is. You could call Crash Racipalooza if you wanted to.

I joke about this movie, but to tell you the truth, it's pretty good despite the fact that it's awfully heavy handed and dripping with cynicism.

The main focus of the movie seems to center on the hypocrisy of those involved. The black director, for example, feels that he's a positive role model for the African American community, but in reality all he's doing is furthering racial stereotypes in his work. An idealistic cop who feels repulsed by his racist partner eventually discovers that he harbors racist feelings of his own. A couple of young black men continually lament about the conspiracies to keep black men down, and yet - as carjackers and thieves - they fail to see themselves as part of the problem.

There is wisdom in this movie, but there is also humor to be found as well in looking at some of these characters. I guess it's the extra addition of this humor - or the coincidental manifestation of it - that gives the movie a better standing with me and loosens up what could have been a more depressing 90 minutes.

All in all, I enjoyed this movie in certain ways. The optimist in me wants to believe that these are extremist examples - a small and rare cross-section - but I'm no fool either. I know that there are real people out there that feel this way and hopefully, if a couple of them watch this movie, they will see themselves and the hypocrisy that this movie was trying to make evident. Maybe then, Crash will have done some good.

But, then again, that's the optimist in me. Truthfully, other than pointing out hypocrisy, this movie doesn't really say anything about race relations at all. It's a grim and depressing tangled tale and, although expertly done, really isn't a wonderful or groundbreaking film.

If anything, this movie is like a guy pointing to the sky and complaining about the hole in the ozone layer, telling us that it's all our fault, and yet offering no solution on how to fix it.

Crash isn't a bad movie by any means, but it is frustrating in its complete lack of saying more when it wanted to say more and when it promised to say more. It succeeds as a character piece because the players in this movie are very well-rounded people, but the movie's dour outlook and lack of message is very discouraging.