Review

Review Date: 15-May-05
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Crash (2005)

It's sad but true: at least once a day it occurs to me that people are shit. Ignorant and self-absorbed, we run around in our puny lives behaving reprehensibly, destructively, irrationally, or discourteously, rarely doing anything good or sensible for ourselves or anyone else. Most of us have some trace of conscience, but this doesn't mean we're moral; indeed, it probably explains why we need a scapegoat to exonerate us of our crimes. Fed up, pissed off, tired of feeling hungry/lonely/disenfranchised/guilty? No problem! There's always another gender, another sexual orientation, another country, another skin color, another religion, another gang, another side of the tracks upon which to vent your frustration and convince yourself that whatever your faults and your worthlessness, they're nothing compared with the other guy's. Bigotry is so integral to the daily existence of 99 percent of humans that I sometimes wonder whether a world without it would be scarier than this one, where it's rife.

"Crash" (which is perhaps not the best movie for me to be watching) examines a group of intersecting lives during a few days in Los Angeles and tackles the issue of prejudice head on. It is not about "race relations" but human relations, the myriad ways in which men and women interact as families and communities and usually end up beating each other black and blue (race simply being the most obvious blunt object at hand). As the large cast of cops, robbers, white collar elite, and blue collar labor wrestles with everyday life, they constantly run into the problem of an American melting pot threatening to boil over. The first marked example of this comes when a white police officer (Matt Dillon) harasses a wealthy black couple (Thandie Newton, Terrence Howard), much to the horror of his partner (Ryan Phillippe). This incident has repercussions for all of them, but no one fully reaps the rewards you would hope from heaven's or Hollywood's justice. The film's unflinching view of a society where conflict is the closest thing to communion precludes any storybook endings save one, in a sequence that involves a Hispanic locksmith (Michael Peña) and an Iraqi merchant (Shaun Toub) who outwardly share only hate but inwardly share a love for their daughters.

The central issue of race goes hand in hand with two modern ills that exacerbate the problem: guns and cars. While people may also have been shit in ancient China and medieval Poland, only recently did they have access to such easy means of escalating tense situations into violence. Along with several vehicular collisions referenced in the movie's title, this modern angle is presented early on when a pair of young criminals (Larenz Tate, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) remark that they're unafraid to be black in a white neighborhood because they've got guns (which they proceed to use in relieving Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock of their SUV). The notion of misplaced power which guns cannot help but introduce is further reflected in a thread in which Don Cheadle learns that good intentions are no match for the inherent corruption of the way things are.

Like Paul Thomas Anderson, director/co-writer Paul Haggis does a fine job juggling a number of LA stories that get at the heart of mankind, but he seems to conclude that human plagues such as bigotry corrode both our public and personal lives — there is no sure salvation in family as in Anderson's world. Haggis makes the case that everyone has both good and bad within them, but that's not comfort enough to offset the agonies that he lays bare. "Crash" is brave and honest, well structured and well acted, but you might come away from it a little bruised.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.