Crash. It’s already been suffering some pretty hilarious critical re-evaluation(type Crash is a terrible movie into your favorite search engine), but the year it came out I knew so many people talking about it as an “important” film, given how it dealt with race relations in America.
Paul Haggis made a big, important “message movie” that demonstrated quite readily he had no real understanding of racial dynamics in America. I knew before I even looked him up that he was Canadian.
Not to bag on you Canadians, I freaking love Canada and Canadians! But boy, sometimes when you guys try to get “gritty,” it just doesn’t play legit.
I also knew it was just the type of terrible movie that would win Oscar for Best Picture, because the Academy wanted to make sure everyone knew it was “very serious” about taking on racism. Ha! This movie is so dumb.
Here are some of my favorite critical quotes on the movie.
“Characters come straight from the assembly line of screenwriting archetypes, and too often they act in ways that archetypes, rather than human beings, do.” - Ty Burr
“It's one of those risible films that aspires to make audiences feel like they're better people for having seen it. It's less an honest and persuasive exploration of racial conflicts in America than a crude, melodramatic burlesque of inter-racial warfare pitched to a breathless level of hysteria.” - Nathan Rabin.
“Contrived, obvious and overstated, Crash is basically just one white man's righteous attempt to make other white people feel as if they've confronted the problem of racism head-on.” - Peter Debruge
“The theme is racism. Let me say that again: The theme is racism. I could say it 500 more times because that's how many times the movie says it, in every single scene.” - David Edelstein
“A grim, histrionic experiment in vehicular metaphor slaughter.” - Carina Chocana