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As I write this review, the clock reads 1:51
in the morning and I am wide awake. I just finished
watching Crash and am blown away. I had to force
myself not to rewatch scenes so I would write the review.
Writer and director Paul Haggis, the man responsible for the
screenplay for Million Dollar Baby, has proven to me that he
is one of the most talented and intuitive writers currently
in Hollywood. The film involves the lives of almost
fifteen different characters and interweaves them so
carefully that one never focuses on that word that kills so
many high concept movies: coincidence. With the
same skill that P.T. Anderson demonstrated in Magnolia,
Haggis tells the stories of these very different and very
flawed characters so seamlessly that one is hard pressed to
not be sucked deeply into the film. With a
great ear for dialogue, we meet people from literally all
walks of life, cast our judgments over them and then watch
as everything gets turned around. I must admit that
for the first twenty minutes of the movie, I wasn't
impressed. The dialogue seemed too stilted, too lesson
oriented and too and soapbox preachy. I felt like I
was going to spend the next hour and a half being preached
to about the dangers of racism which I am already well aware
of. But that was the point.
After the characters have all said their piece, stated their
positions and demonstrated their standpoints, the world does
the flips it always does and changes everyone's perspective.
Some for the better some for the worse. Rather than
singling out particular groups, Haggis targets almost every
race and shows their inherent racism, so much so that after
a while racism seems an inadequete term. The only term
that seems to make sense, is this: Human Nature.
And what is human nature? Is is our nature to hate,
our nature to distrust, or our nature to gang together with
like-looking people who may or may not be like-minded?
This is the true question of the movie. Haggis knows
that we all know that racism is bad. The question he
is asking instead is it preventable? Can we stop it,
escape it, change that natural grouping behavior that is
almost instinctual? Is it instinctual?
With extraordinarily strong performances from some actors
who have long been favorites of mine, the film trucks along
quickly, throwing question after question at us but giving
us little time to consider before the next tragedy explodes
or the next miracle occurs. Nothing is guaranteed,
nothing is for sure, and no person is two-dimensional?
What is it to be a good person? Can someone be a good
person who does bad things? Or a bad person who does
good things? Is being good an all or nothing affair?
Can we change, have we changed, has part of us changed but
the whole still rules it? Matt Dillon's character Sgt.
Jack Ryan is the one who seems to have the biggest internal
struggle over this. Hardened by years of dealing with
what seems like mostly black crime, he finds himself not at
all the man his father was. As a result of his
hardness and hatred he can do things and justify them to
himself as not being bad because they were done to "bad"
people. As the movie progresses he begins to question
this, and by the end is left deeply perplexed but in that
confusion lies hope. And hope permeates this
movie, even as reality keeps trying to dash it. Haggis
makes all the twists you DON'T expect, pulls all the punches
you don't think he will, and strikes when you least expect
it. This formula pulls the movie far from the soapbox
preachy genre and into a sociological and very fair study of
what makes us human and what is right. In
casting the movie, Haggis and casting directors Finn and
Hiller with some form of deep prescience manage to get every
part exactly right finding mainstream and not mainstream
actors who nail their characters and seem to understand
exactly what Haggis is aiming at. In a film about not
not judging but rather promoting careful thought in
judgment, the actors put forth performances that deepen
Haggis' intent so much that escape from such contemplation
is impossible. One of the leaders in this department
is a man who I've long been a fan of, Matt Dillon.
Dillon nails a particularly difficult role as a man we have
to hate at the beginning of the movie for doing something
almost unthinkable, who then doesn't evolve but rather
reveals more of himself to us as the film continues.
Hating him is suddenly no longer an option, and this becomes
rather troubling to the viewer. It's much easier to
hate him than to instead think it through. And therein
lies a major message of the movie... hate is easy. But
it's also lazy, it is the path of least resistance, and that
is a path that never leads to anywhere good.
Don Cheadle, who has also been a favorite of mine for many
years with incredible turns in movies like Boogie Nights,
Devil in a Blue Dress, Bulworth and Out of Sight, not to
mention his more recent larger accomplishments, is also one
of the producers of the film. Cheadle plays a clearer
"good guy" who seems to get blurry by the middle of the
movie before we realize he is actually blurry to himself.
It's easy to write this off as an easy part when you watch
it, but don't be fooled, this is far from that:
Cheadle only makes it look easy because he so damn
good. Michael Pena, a little known actor at
this point actually does what might be my favorite
performance in the movie as a locksmith and loving father
who does everything right, and is rarely noticed for it.
He and little Ashlyn Sanchez provide what was the most
heartwarming and real moment in the film for me as well as
the scene that hurt me so bad that woke up my sleeping
girlfriend. Pena's acting seems completely natural to
him, like he just walked onto the set midway through his day
and kept on going the same way he had been. When he
soothes his frightened daughter he seems like the best
father in the world and when he thinks she's been hurt, his
pain will stab you. The look on his face, the silent
scream Haggis gives him, the terror in his eyes and the
intense life-destroying fright that registers absolutely
destroyed me. Keep an eye on Pena and keep an eye on
little Ashyln Sanchez because both are going somewhere good
in movies. Pena is amazing. Add to this
strong performances by Ryan Phillippe, Sandra Bullock,
Brandon Fraiser, Thandie Newton, Lornez Tate, Terrence
Howard and, yes, even (and especially) Chris "Ludacris"
Bridges and many, many others, and Crash is a pure winner.
An incredible movie that asks the right questions, provides
just the right reality, leaves enough unanswered and enough
unfair, while still providing the hope inherent in our
intellect and our hearts, Crash is one of the best movies
I've seen in a long time.
The cover of the box I've got has a quote
from David Denby of The New Yorker that says, "Easily the
strongest American film since 'Mystic River'."
Ridiculous. Mystic River doesn't even register on the
same scale. Crash is a movie to see, own and
think deeply, deeply about. |
