Crash

Crash (Paul Haggis, 2005) [2]
I was faced with a conundrum before watching Crash. Roger Ebert, whose opinion I admire and agree with a good majority of the time, named it his best film of 2005. On the other hand, Sicinski has called it the worst film of the year. And while I may have been too influenced by his review here, I have to agree with him. Crash is a horrible film, not in that it was poorly made, but in that it is blatantly manipulative, has preposterous coincidences that pretty much defy logic, and deals with race in generalizations. Haggis has created a fantasy land where every race gets the opportunity to experience some kind of racial bias or prejudice. It’s pretty clear that Haggis has created a system in this film where everybody can shoulder some of the blame, and make the good liberals in the audience shake their head and feel guilty. And that’s my biggest problem with the film. Haggis is so blatantly manipulative in his choices that causes me both anger and to roll my eyes back in my head. His jumps of logic in the narrative are barely believable, and some of the actions by the characters (the gun and the girl, the mother scolding her son) are so ridiculous and toy with the audience so much Haggis should be embarrassed for himself. Haggis’s biggest problem is the assumption in the film that everybody gets treated equally in regard to racism is pure fiction. But it sure makes the liberals feel good, because every one is treated equally. I’m a liberal and feel sorry for others who don’t understand that the races are not equal and that the assumptions put forth by this film are dangerous to how we regard race.