Ken Savage Making IT in Massachusetts

See the movie Crash – You’ll love to hate it

Some people believe the Civil Rights Movement has come and gone and that our country operates as it should. Bigotry remains a thing of the past and what happened in the ‘60s should just be a short chapter in our history books. Some people also believe that Political Correctness has gone too far and that we shouldn’t have to constantly go through life walking that fine line between offending someone with an off-hand, innocent remark and being so unbearably polite and (gasp!) New Age. In a perfect world, none of this would matter one whit. But if you open your history books, you’ll find that we couldn’t possibly operate any other way.

The Civil Rights Movement didn’t just happen in the sixties. It built up to the sixties, over a century of slavery and oppression finally reaching its breaking point after a long, arduous struggle. The essence of Political Correctness won’t go away, nor do I think it should. It’s a well-meaning philosophy that has its roots in progress. We tend to take it too far at times, but that’s also how we operate. Passing Civil Rights laws and applying Political Correctness will not wipe any slate clean. It will take another generation before society can look at this time in history and wonder what the fuss was all about.

Paul Haggis’ “Crash” pinpoints this time in our history and how we continue to maneuver the rights and wrongs of political correctness and how our individual perceptions of this ideal can cause great strife and fear. Like Lawrence Kasdan’s “Grand Canyon,” it takes place in Los Angeles where white people try to gage the climate of racism without succumbing to it while black people fall victim to it from those who serve and protect. The Rodney King beatings should be a thing of the past and we should move on. This film suggests (in a roundabout way, without referencing the King beatings) that there’s no way to move on so quickly, because that’s not how history operates.

“Crash” is an ensemble piece and like many ensemble pieces, there exists a voice of conscience among the wreckage. The character of Graham (Don Cheadle) waxes philosophic about the need for people to connect, that some people miss human contact so much they’ll crash into someone just to feel anything but numbness. The movie then flashes back to yesterday and the events that lead up to the film’s opening/conclusion.

Many situations and characters come into play, but I won’t try to connect the dots for you. For the white characters, we have a district attorney, Rick (Brendan Fraser) and his wife Jean (Sandra Bullock). Their car gets hijacked and taken from them by two black thieves (Larenz Tate and Ludacris). We also have two white cops, Ryan (Matt Dillon) and Hanson (Ryan Phillippe). Ryan pulls over a black couple and ends up feeling up the woman and intimidating the man to the point of being completely powerless.

This black couple, Christine (Thandie Newton) and Cameron (Terrance Dashon Howard), try to cope with this unpleasant experience, but they remain at odds. Christine maintains that if Cameron loved her, he would have protected her. Cameron maintains that had he done anything to upset the cops, he’d be in jail regardless of whether or not he was innocent to begin with. Meanwhile, Graham (Cheadle) deals with his ignorance on race when he can’t figure out where his Latina partner, with whom he’s having an affair, is really from.

Meanwhile, the district attorney and his wife hire a locksmith, Daniel (Michael Pena), to install new locks on the doors for fear of having to repeat the carjacking experience in their own home. When she gets a sight of Daniel’s tattoo, she thinks he belongs to a gang and that he’ll sell copies of the keys to a bunch of thugs. Actually, he makes an honest living and has a loving wife and daughter.

All of these stories criss-cross and collide into each other at some point and I’m also leaving out some key points that are best left discovered by the viewer. Many have been dubbing this film a lesser “Magnolia” or “13 Conversations About Grand Canyon.” It’s easy to pigeonhole this movie as such, but I don’t believe the movie exists as an experiment in storytelling for the sake of being clever. It has a lot on its mind and, unlike most movies these days, a lot of it is worth hearing.

As a director, Haggis freely confronts his audience with important personal issues that will spark debates, but he tends to underscore the importance of his subjects with an overbearing score that, at times, costs the film some power. As a writer, Haggis almost never hits a false note. Only towards the end when Ryan Phillippe’c character commits some unbelievable acts does the movie lose sight of its characters and forces them in directions that make little sense. In terms of structure, his screenplay works beautifully and he has made the right choice by having Cheadle give his speech early in the film rather than later.

Xenophobia and racism will never go away permanently. Many people who go through life with fear and hated in their hearts probably have a personal story to tell you about why they feel the way they do. “Crash” will have many people thinking about their own prejudices and thought patters when it comes to matters of race and nationality. I often wonder why white people tense up when they see two young black men walking down the street, as does happen in the movie. Aren’t history’s most famous serial killers white? It’s a rhetorical question, so spare me your emails. I just find the irony interesting. I guess that’s just how we operate.

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