I have to admit, I had so much fun writing the review for The Machine, that I decided to review some other films I’d seen recently.
In an effort to prove its multicultural-ness, the UP set up a screening of the movie crash followed by a panel discussion. February at UA is chock-full of stuff like this. I had heard great things about the movie so I called up my friend, Garrett and decided to check it out.
First good thing, they used a DVD copy instead of the terrible VHS that they usually use for movie screenings.
Second good thing, well, I am not going to keep numbering them, but I have to admit that as soon as I saw the slow motion drops of rain hitting the pavement with Don Cheadle‘s existential voice-over I decided that I was going to like this movie.
The most common criticism of Crash that I’ve heard is that it is too heavy handed. Apparantly race has been replaced by gay rights as the hot topic of the moment. Still, I think the movie is relavent. Yes, the movie is heavy handed, but I think it exaggerates a bit in order to prove its point. The characters actually say what everyone thinks. In today’s PC world such language is jarring and almost unbelievable, but most of us have caught ourselves thinking something similar before.
The plot meanders through the tangled web that is the lives of the characters. Everyone is represented: The racist white cop, the racist black cop, the racist white yuppie, the racist black theif. Face it, in this movie, everyone is a racist. The movie takes us behind the jaded exteriors of the characters and helps us to see the motivations behind their actions. The bad guys have some good in them, the good guys have a little bad as well.
With all its preaching, the climax of the movie still left me teary-eyed and stayed with me through the rest of the night. The movie was intense. I read somewhere that it ranked second last year for number of swear words. You have to let go of your defensiveness to enjoy Crash, but once you do, you will definitely walk away a better person.
Rated: R for pervasive language, violence, sex, and every racial epithet you’ve ever heard (and maybe a few you haven’t)
[rating:4]