Customer Reviews

Crash [UMD for PSP]

5 star:		(483)
4 star:		(142)
3 star:		(94)
2 star:		(128)
1 star:		(185)

 

 

This is the truest movie out there on racism, and the preconceived notions we ALL (no matter what color) try not to admit to to a certain extent. This was not a "lets bash the white man" movie either, the racism was across the board. The biggest surprise was to come about an hour in, and I was stunned to see the revelation of that storyline (with Matt Dillon). This film requires paying attention to, please stay with it, it will pay off. High recommend!

However the script is such an amateurish mess that the film fails miserably. The performances are wonderful, especially for such a parade of B-listers but with that screenplay it is all for not.

There is never a moment of truth in this entire film. It disappoints me so much I had to give it one star. It could have been so great and so important if a competent filmmaker had been involved.

Crash is a terrible overplayed afterschool special. The worst part of it is that a few older actors admitted they didn't want to see Brokeback Mountain , so it appears they voted for this by default. (frankly, those actors shouldn't be voting if they haven't seen the movies and should be kicked out of the academy).
It doesn't really matter anyway, the oscars have lost all integrity. The Crash team basically paid for their 'best picture' award. (The distributor even admitted that the few million they spent sending 130,000 dvds to academy members would pay off in about $10 million in additional revenue for Crash if they could get it to win 'best picture').
If you want an idea of what movies to watch based on awards from organizations with members who are movie fanatics and actually watch the movies that they vote for, then I would say check out the GOLDEN GLOBES, the INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS and the BAFTA (basically the British top movie awards). Interesting how ALL these groups gave the best picture of 2005 award to Brokeback Mountain. Remember, the Oscars are about business and making more money , not honoring the movie and movie fans.

I'll keep this short and to the point. I was told by numerous people that I had to see this film(?). What a waste of time. This is not Magnolia, Short Cuts, or Pulp Fiction. I truly hated this movie. There are many other fine films out there that portray rascism and hatred in a much more realistic and heartbreaking way.

Unbelievable that this film should win the Oscar. It's 1-1/2 stars out of four at *best.* Like so much of Hollywood's social commentary, it says much more about the race and class ideologies of the people who made the movie than it does about the society it attempts to portray. I'm not saying it doesn't have its moments, but the manner in which race and class issues were addressed were mostly phony, shallow and stereotyped. At its heart, the movie is just silly, paradoxically made even sillier by its achievement as Best Picture.

Also, basic plotting and storytelling is ignored. High school seniors could write a better plot. Here's a literary example: in Les Miserables, you ever notice how Inspector Javert keeps popping up at just the right moment? You know what that is? I'm sure there's some fancy English Major name for it, but its common term is "unexplained coincidence," a.k.a. "clumsy plot device." Using unexplained coincidences to goose the plot may have been acceptable for 19th century readers, but I think 21st century audiences expect and deserve better. When you look at how films like "Magnolia" and "Pulp Fiction" dealt with intersecting stories, you're looking at at least journeymen screenwriters, who are thoughtful enough to overcome this problem. Not in Crash, oh no. Just stick with the clumsy plot devices right to the end. One cop saves the life of a woman he felt up the night before. His partner, in a different part of town, saves the life of her husband. The husband is carjacked by a robber whose partner is shot by the police officer he met the night before. A cop investigates his own brother's death. Come ON.

Here's the best way to express my feelings about this ridiculously overrated movie. A quote from LA Weekly film critic Scott Foundas writing for Slate.com:
"Welcome to the best movie of the year for people who like to say, 'A lot of my best friends are black.'"

Don't buy this dvd. Buy 13 Conversations About One Thing. It's the same general idea, but with some sense and subtlety. Crash has neither and just delights in racial epithets. Congratulations, Paul Haggis, you know a lot of dirty words. Too bad you can't write above a fifth-grade level.

I love, love, love the Oscars. This year, when I read that Crash was nominated, I laughed to myself and figured the Academy just needed to fill one more spot to make five...WOW, and then it WON. It actually WON. I will admit I have not seen Brokeback Mountain yet, but I also know that given the publicity and accolades Brokeback has received, it seemed almost indefinite that it would win. Crash is a Lifetime movie at best.
Crash mangaged to have an agenda, stick to the agenda, and basically scream, "Here is our agenda...racism is bad!" for the entire film. Some of the more "serious" racism scenes were so over-the-top and unrealistic that I laughed more than I thought, "What a deep, moving film this is..." Actually, I don't think I thought "deeply" at all during this crap, nor do I find it moving or profound.
How did Matt Dillon get nominated from an ensemble cast where no one in particular shined? This film could have been done with a dozen nobodies and it would still be the same.
I think the Academy, unfortunately, isn't ready to give an Oscar to a film like Brokeback, but they want to look socially aware, so Crash was a safe choice. It's a wonder this film was nominated to begin with.

I just finished watching this film. I find that it takes a very simplistic and childlike view of race relations. It's extremely melodramatic in all of the wrong ways. It started out as intriguing with the development of plot, but the resolutions were weak and tepid. This has a very TV-movie quality to it, and I am SHOCKED that this movie won the best movie of the year. The only thing I can think of is that the liberal Hollywood elite wants Americans to think that there is still a tremendous amount of civil strive between races. This hostility is what fuels the Dem base. There is of course still racism in this country, but there is no way it is this ubiquitous, and this movie constantly veers towards parody unintentionally with its heavy handed "everyone's a little bit racist" cries.

Let me preface this by saying that even though I wasn't moved at all when I first rented this movie, I gave it another chance by renting it again. I'm sorry to say I was even more put off by it the second time around. I read somewhere that if you really want to see an accurate depiction of racism in America, turn your eyes to the footage from the devastation of Katrina. I truly believe that. "Crash" played it safe, it was riddled with clichés, and quite frankly, it was highly unbelievable by any stretch of the imagination. That it was given an Academy Award for Best Picture is a joke -- every other picture in that category deserved it over "Crash," including some that were not even nominated. I think the cinematography was wonderful, and the score was haunting, but Oscar or no Oscar, it is anything but a classic. Ultimately, it's not even a good movie.

I'm from Los Angeles, and lived in some depressed neighborhoods around downtown, and I can only say that this movie is some Canadian director's stereotyped view of race relations in LA. This guy has clearly never really seen the living, breathing, working heart of Los Angeles or else he wouldn't have put in such stupid stereotypes. The presentation of Asians in the film is the worst, and considering the overemphasis on white/black relations in LA, he clearly misses the real diversity that exists in LA, where people of all different types grow up and live together. LA to him is just a backdrop to tell a non-LA story of race relations in a city and outrages us Angelenos with his idiocy. Don't wasts your money.