Crash has been getting some of the best reviews of the year. Roger Ebert called it a "movie of intense fascination". Ella Taylor in the LA Weekly has called it "one of the best Hollywood movies about race, but, along with Collateral, one of the finest portrayals of contemporary Los Angeles life period". Tom Meek in The Boston Phoenix says writer/director Paul Haggis (who wrote Million Dollar Baby) "slices into the racism and the elitism that are rife in America today".
Such observations are absurd. Thankfully there are some critics like A.O. Scott of The New York Times. He describes it as "full of heart and devoid of life; crudely manipulative when it tries hardest to be subtle; and profoundly complacent in spite of its intention to unsettle and disturb". Hopefully at least some Americans will read things other than raves about Crash - because honestly I haven't seen such a disappointing movie praised so much since House of Sand and Fog.
This trainwreck of supposed meaning and inspiration is banal and overwrought. Overwrought actually doesn't even come close to getting the point across though. This film comes to such shocking conclusions as 1) people are complex 2) racism is something even rich black Americans face 3) people do occasionally not follow their principles 4) and people often make decisions and comments based on stereotypes. Honestly, I thought about leaving the theater after the first few lines of the movie were spoken (yes, the ridiculous high-school-sophmore-quality diagoue starts that early) and I thought about leaving at least 2 more times as I watched.
Oh, and a very special permanent pink slip in the movie business should go to anyone who had anything to do with the music in this film. It was so over used to hit every obvious emotional spike that you'd think you were watching Return of the King. And don't even get me started on the slow motion.
Yes, race, class, steretypes and urban life make for drama. But there is precious little of it here in this sort of predestined melee of constant anger and improbable (yet somehow predictable) turns. On that point, there were sections of Revenge of the Sith that were more plausible.
The one reason that I was glad I stuck with it was that there were some nice performances. Don Cheadle is always fantastic of course, and in this I'd put Terrence Howard right up there with him. He's great. And there are some nice little turns by Jennifer Esposito, William Fitchner and Ryan Phillippe.
But all in all, this is the kind of loathsome and insipid crap that all too often passes for art of late. If this is supposedly insightful - the level of thoughtfulness and critical thinking in this country has reached a shocking new low. I give it a definite thumbs down. Go watch the last Star Wars film instead.
Posted by armand at May 27, 2005 01:39 PM | TrackBack | Posted to MoviesUh, AO Scott (of the NY Times) called the latest Star Wars movie the best since "Empire Strikes Back" and perhaps the best one of all six. Having seen the Sith, I think I'll disagree. Hence, AO Scott's review of Crash loses some credibility. In any event (not having seen Crash), if you are sending people to something else, don't send them to Sith. It really wasn't very good.
Posted by: baltar at May 27, 2005 03:37 PM | PERMALINKWell, I just mentioned Sith because those were the two movies I saw at the theater this week, and I liked Sith much more than Crash. As far as something I've heard really good word of mouth on - Mysterious Skin. It's probably only playing the country's biggest cities, but that's supposedly quite good.
Posted by: Armand at May 28, 2005 01:43 PM | PERMALINKWow, if you liked Crash that much worse than Sith, it must really be bad. Sith sucked major wookie ass. I burst out laughing at a few (supposedly serious) points. I'm unconvinced that AO Scott is a good reviewer, at any rate. He seems very inconsistent to me.
Posted by: baltar at May 28, 2005 04:57 PM | PERMALINKi won't dispute crash, having not seen it, and i won't take up sith, since my feelings are, ultimately, fairly tepid, but since i agree that it was the best SW flick since empire (what, you think jedi was better?) i'll leave scott alone here.
all of that said, i'm not sure why House of Sand and Fog gets pilloried here. i thought it was an excellent movie that caught more of the spirit of shakespearian tragedy than many recent film adaptations of the bard (not to mention a few hollow live performances i've seen in the past half decade). the performances were astonishing pretty much across the board.
Posted by: joshua at May 31, 2005 02:11 PM | PERMALINKJoshua - The Bard? Andre Dubus wrote House of Sand and Fog. And it gets pilloried here b/c, like I said, it was the last movie that I saw (that I can think of) that got excellent reviews that grossly failed to live up to the hype. While the actors who played the Iranian family were indeed quite good, I didn't find much at all believeable about Jennifer C's character or performance, I thought the pacing was poor, and, all in all, I thought it was poorly done. That said, I think Crash is worse.
Posted by: Armand at May 31, 2005 03:14 PM | PERMALINKmy point was that the film adaptation of dubus' novel, in my opinion, had more of the resonance of shakespearian tragedy than a number of the recent adaptations of shakespeariant tragedy. certainly, my intent was not to suggest dubus is in the same league in general terms.
anyway, it's been a while since i saw HSF, so i'll leave it at that.
Posted by: joshua at June 1, 2005 10:12 AM | PERMALINK