Crash
Directed by Paul Haggis
Produced by Bull’s Eye Entertainment, DEJ Productions, Bob Yari Productions, Harris Company
Starring: Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Terence Howard, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Esposito, Chris Bridges, Michael Pena Brendan Fraser, Thandie Newton, Larenz Tate, Ryan Phillippe
Rated: R
Two hours, two minutes
Grade: A
I see a lot of movies. Not as many as Jim, but still, plenty. And because I’ve made a commitment to writing about them here, I look at them very differently. In fact, I’ve looked at movies differently for a while. I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago, and we were talking about how we watch movies. The point I made is that we are able to appreciate films more than some other people because we watch a movie, and rather than just enjoy the story or the performances, we also try to think about the question, “what is the filmmaker trying to tell me here?” I think, for this reason, people who really love movies look at them very differently than people who simply think of movies as a diversion, something fun to do on a Saturday night.
The downside is that I sometimes find myself quite detached from the films I see. For instance, there are some who would find themselves rooting for Texas Western during the climactic game of Glory Road. I couldn’t do that. My mind was already busy with examining the plot, the use of the characters, and the pacing (not to mention many other intangibles that I won’t go into here).
So, I’m always a little surprised when a film truly grips me. When it grabs me, shakes me, puts me down, and lifts me back up. King Kong did that to some extent, but on a more superficial level. Garden State did it, although that was a very personal thing, and not something I could ever truly describe. Crash, more than any film in recent memory, has accomplished this. It is, above all, powerful. But that is not all it is. It is gripping, it is painful, it is suspenseful, it is, in a word, complete.
On one hand, there is no single plot to the film. On the other, there is a very important and personal plot with which we can all identify. The topic of race in the United States, perhaps more than anywhere else, is among the most talked-about, yet least understood of all of the things in our national conscience. This film provides no answers. It merely, and possibly for the first time in movie history, asks the right questions, of the right people: you and me.
The first words of the movie, spoken by the amazing and highly-regarded Cheadle as a detective named Graham, serve as the Greek Chorus, the preamble of Haggis’ treatise on race and interpersonal relations. “In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you,” he says. “In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”
Perhaps more than anything, the trajectory of this movie is about collisions. Collisions of people, automobiles, ideals, misconceptions, and stereotypes. It begins with an apparent accident scene, though that becomes something more. Graham, along with Esposito’s Ria, are there to investigate a homicide. But from the very beginning, we are thrust into the harshness of the film, when Ria begins to argue with an Asian woman who rear-ended her car. The racial epithets being hurled are the sort of superficial, vicious words we think of as being bigoted, horrible, and ugly. By the end of the film, it’s surprising to feel like they are almost a good thing, because they eventually lead to change. What Crash does is rip open a seam in the blanket of political correctness, exposing the reasons and results of racial tensions. To try to recap the plot here would be fairly difficult. Much like one of my favorite films, Magnolia, there are simply too many stories involved, and I also think it would be harmful for me to write about it here, particularly if you haven’t seen the movie. But to cover the main points:
— Cheadle is a virtuous, idealistic cop, but he has his skeletons. Among them are a mother with a heroin addiction, and a brother who is missing, and likely getting himself into trouble. He and Esposito are also having an affair, which only lasts on screen for a few seconds before being rended by Graham’s own racial prejudices.— Dillon, whose story is probably the strongest of the film, plays a cop who is introduced via his racial prejudices. They are far more overt than anyone else’s in the movie, though we begin to see that they are only on the surface, and when the time comes, he is human, both in his care for his ailing father and his heroic efforts to save another. His partner (Phillippe) has a sidebar story with a heart-breaking end.
— Howard plays a television producer whose blackness is called into question by his wife (Newton), after they are pulled over and subjected to a violating, insulting search. This flips a switch in him, and the reticent, easy-going man gives way to a violent, desperate person at the end of his rope. Newton’s reaction is much quicker, and her feelings of betrayal by Howard are what ultimately set him off. She, eventually, must give way to her own hardened notions on race and the role of the police in the city.
— Bullock is the wive of the Los Angeles District Attorney, played by Fraser, and after two young black men (Bridges and Tate) carjack them, a wound is opened, and the deep-seated flames of her anger are fueled to the point where she cannot escape it, even as Fraser is trying to balance the need to be a strong public figure and yet not make the carjacking a catalyst for a racial firestorm (and a lost election).
— Daniel (Pena) is, to put it bluntly, the picture of trouble in an inner city. But that is only a picture. We find him to be the most forgiving, least dirty person in the whole ensemble. He is not a dynamic character, and yet his is maybe the most warming story of them all. He is a father, a hard-working man, and a person to whom, it seems, only bad things can happen in a movie like this. His penultimate scene had me in tears.
— Finally, Bridges and Tate are traveling companions, whose thoughts on race (specifically those of Bridges, better known as rapper Ludacris) make for a running commentary throughout the movie. Their individual ends in the film are the reverse of the expectation, much like those of every other character.
It is that last point that becomes the message-carrier of the film. Each character experiences a change, whether it is a more open mind, an acceptance of the status quo, or the realization of deep, dark, horrible truths about him or herself that seem to have been hiding in plain sight all along.
So what are we to make of the film? What was Haggis trying to tell us? Perhaps his point, or at least his goal, is found in a quote from the making-of documentary on the DVD extras: “Once you get people angry, you get them talking. Once you get them talking, they resolve issues.”
This film certainly does, and will continue to, make people talk. If there is a flaw, it is in the film’s inability to fully support the weight of all of the stories. But the only way that could be done, as far as I’m concerned, is to make it a three-day miniseries. It works better as a very high-level, provocative, and inspired movie. It will most certainly grab you, and make you question your own beliefs. Let it.
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