Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Paul Magne Haakonsen For some reason then I never got around to watching "Crash" until now, after I was strongly recommended it by a teacher. So I got the chance and sat down to watch it, and it turned out that I had actually missed out on a rather unique movie experience.While the storyline in the movie might seem a bit sporadic and all over the place at first, then I can only urge you to stick with it, because it all comes full circle and comes together in a very impressive manner.Director and writer Paul Haggis managed to put together a good story that was voven together by many different storylines. But it all worked out quite well when pieced together.The cast in "Crash" was just spectacular and they really had some talented actors and actresses on the cast list. You will be blown away by the collection of talents that are present in this movie.But not only the cast was fantastic here. The characters that the actors and actresses were portraying was equally fantastic. The characters were so well-nuanced and individually adding something unique to the storyline.The pacing in the movie was quite good, and there wasn't really a dull moment throughout the course of the movie."Crash" is definitely a movie that is well worth taking the time to sit down and watch.

bkdevries The definitive treatise on racism. Illustrates that racism is an endemic disease of institutions and systems, symptomatic of an entrenched culture versus an emergent culture, rather than one on one relationships (except for stranger with stranger encounters). Illustrates also the seduction of individuals into the cultural pressure or "dark side" of a cultural norm or culturally acceptable bad behavior.

redshoesfall All in all, I actually enjoyed the film for what it was: it thrilling. Not to say it was a thriller, but there are points in which are incredibly intense and entertaining, and I'd say a watch is worth it for that.Obviously, the film has some major flaws: just by reading the script, one could say that the film is a little full of itself. Maybe a lot. The film begins with Don Cheadle talking off like it's poetry night, when in actually he's a detective in LA. A normal dude, right? "All this meddlin' glass..."That's to say that in the least, the dialogue takes itself too seriously, trying too hard to make a point. The stronger points of the film are when the characters aren't saying anything.The actions and the subject of racism in the film work to the extent of it's viewer's capability of taking these in stride. When I first watch the movie, I went in totally cold - it was more than a decade it was made and I had no idea what it was about.The first couple of minutes, I got it. Racism is bad. Job done - but they keep dragging it out when I think it handled the subject best when it was just the characters living their lives with their worries, discomforts, and obstacles. This film is incredibly contrived.Yet, I can't help but recommend it for some viewers, at least those who can stand/look past the cheesy dialogue and heavy-handed message - there are parts worth watching for, at least for when I saw it. I love the soundtrack, the actors are great, and the action is actually pretty good, too. I don't recommend referring to any trailers. Most of the ones I've seen only give too much away. Go into this as cold as possible.

Matt Sewell Oh boy. As a feminist accidentally born with testicles, I can tell you, there's nothing I look forward to more than a film reminding me how privileged white males like myself are the scum of the Earth. I generally use movies like this as a sort of intellectual self-flogging to make up for the thousands of years of oppression my people have caused the entire world. This one, however, didn't amount to much more than a sappy, manipulative Disneyesque take on the state of racism in the United States.We know we're in trouble early on when Sandra Bullock's privileged character warns her liberal husband to be worried about two African-American gentlemen on the street and she turns out to be correct. It's like the film is shooting itself in its foot from the get-go. Afircan-Americans should NEVER be portrayed in a negative light on film or in television. They've suffered enough. Later, we meet an atrociously disgusting white police officer in the character of Matt Dillon. He molests an innocent African-American woman (as one suspects white police officers are apt to do on a regular basis) and then, as though the film wants to make some clever statement about irony, the same racist cop saves the same poor, innocent African-American woman from a burning car. The director plays games like this with the audience throughout the picture. It's like he's learned the very worst lessons Spielberg has to offer. Set the audience up, smack them sideways in a manner the filmmaker no doubt considers "clever." It's not. The whole movie reminded me of the patronizing scene in Schindler's List when Liam Neeson notices white flakes in the air. The audience thinks, "Snow! Christmastime! Yeah!" and then he walks a few blocks and we see it is actually ashes from burning Jews. Crash is nothing but an endless series of episodes like this. It looks like it was written by a freshmen cultural studies major who hasn't had enough Liberal Arts training to learn how to make his art subtle and, thus, more meaningful. Avoid this at all costs. For a great movie to feed your white guilt, I recommend "The Brother from Another Planet."