Jennifer Esposito’s character was also a cop, I believe (although I don’t think it was ever made clear whether or not she was married to Don Cheadle’s character).
Sandra Bullock’s character was supposed to be a pampered spoiled brat, so it made sense for her not to have a job.
The only other wives in the movie were the Iranian store-owner’s wife, who obviously worked in the store, and Thandie Newton, and it’s just not clear whether she has a job or not in the limited amount of time she gets.
The other female characters all have jobs, I think, except for the junkie mother. As mentioned by MilTan, Jennifer Esposito played a cop, plus the store-owner’s daughter, Bahar Soomekh, had a job and life of her own, Loretta Devine worked for the HMO, the D.A. had a female assistant and a female maid, and so on.
Sorry to bump this one, but I finally got around to seeing “Crash” and I think they must have sent the wrong film to my theater because the movie I saw was a ham-fisted, overgeneralized piece of tripe that was aptly titled because it was about as subtle as a head-on collision. I’m not opposed to the general ideas behind the film and the lessons it intends to teach - I just think that execution was terrible. Brave attempt at joining together several different plots and characters that, at first, seem to have little to do with one another. Acting was, for the most part, quite good. The script, though? Yikes. I didn’t find it uncomfortable (actually from everything I’d heard about it, I expected it to be thought-provoking and possibly quite disturbing) primarily because it was so over the top that I was never able to connect any of this plot to real life.
After I see movies, I usually head over to Rotten Tomatoes to see what the critics have to say about it. I think in this case, the Los Angeles Times said what I was thinking about as well as anyone could:
[quote]
So much for the urban brotherhood of man: In “Crash,” there’s no getting through a fender bender, casual conversation, business transaction, phone call to mom or naked love romp without someone’s ancestry taking a nasty beating. Okay, race is an issue. I GET IT.
If you haven’t seen it and want to save yourself a few bucks, just write out “people can be really racist but deep down we all try to be good” on a sledgehammer and smack yourself in the head with it a few times. Then imagine a film that’s not quite as subtle.
Sorry, just had to get that out.
Okay, the plot of the movie, I get. The coding to describe it still needs work.
I just saw it yesterday. I really liked it.
I can see how someone would feel like interface feels, but personally I don’t. The screenplay walks a fine line. The movie is written and shot realistically, but the screenplay. . .how do I phrase this? It’s totally contrived and manipulative HOWEVER, it’s clear that the writer’s point is to be contrived and manipulative so you can be forgiving. It’s a parable, not a classic narrative. And, it pulls it off because the dialogue is so well done.
It’s not like a Ron Howard movie that is totally contrived and manipulative, but comports itself as if that’s just the way the story unfolds. In Crash, the coincidences ARE the story, not in service to the story. Make sense?
Now, even though I said it was parable-like, there was still a realism and depth to the characters and their actions. That’s helped in part by the excellent acting. The “pat down” scene is one of the most disturbing moments I’ve seen in film in a long time.
(aside: personally, I think Sandra Bullock is a completely underrated actress. She’s done comedy, drama, action, romance. . .all with ease. She can be dainty, earthy, bitchy, flighty, easy-going, serious and ditzy. I think she’s excellent and she gets ripped on a lot as just another pretty face. She’ll have a role sometime in the future that clues the rest of the world in to what I already figured out.)
Also, I suspected they were blanks when she bought them, and from there it wasn’t a great leap to think, “oh, he’s going to learn a lesson without actually killing somebody.”
WARNING: UNBOXED SPOILERS!
I agree 100%. I liked the movie because I thought the acting was excellent, but the script was pretty weak. It was manipulative, contrived, and predictable. I knew the lady bought blanks (or that it would be important at the end), and I knew that Larenz Tate was Don Cheadle’s brother. I really expected Don Cheadle to walk out of the hospital at the end and toss some trash out of his car window onto the feet of a crying Native American. Another problem I had is that it went out of it’s way to imply that racism is an equally pernicious influence in the lives of people of different races and economic levels.
Also, I think the movie did a great disservice to the subtlety of modern day racism. In almost every interaction during the movie, the characters actually said what should have been implied by their actions. In addition, it made it seems like many of the reasons people are racist are merely logical generalizations run amok. Most racist ideas are not arrived at logically.
Bumping this one up again as I just saw the film after the Oscar Nod (and I figure there might be one or two others who procrastinated).
I loved this movie. In a weak year like 2005, I’d vote for it for best picture.
All of the criticism cited in this thread are things that I thought about, but I think I just come to a conclusion that the good outweighs the bad.
Really though, the film suceeded in the most basic requirement I have for a film being considered for Best Picture: I was “entertained” (in some cases, like say Schindler’s List, the word “entertained” can be replaced with “engaged”).
None of the other 4 best picture nominees truly “entertained” or “engaged” me like this one. Sure, I may have been “moved” or “compelled”, but there was still something lacking.
This one met my second criteria of Best Picture in that it was a “well-made” film. I’d say all five Best Picture films were well crafted enough to meet this criteria.
As for the movie itself:
-
I really liked the absurdly coincidental interplay of the stories. It was a nice effect.
-
While I appreciated Matt Dillon’s performance, there were two or three other performances in the film just as worthy. Specifically Don Cheadle and Terrence Howard.
Wasn’t she the coroner at the end when Cheadle is viewing the body?
- I too thought the hispanic locksmith was the most decent character in the film. I was so happy his story worked out like it did.
Not truly worthy of Best Picture, but of the five nominated this year, I’d be more than happy if it won.
I thought it presented racism in a realistic light. The main message I got from the film was that a person can hold racist ideas to different degrees, that racism in our society isn’t a black and white issue. (unintentional pun). Also that a person can hold racist ideas subconsciously but still function as a decent and loving human being otherwise. I like films that show characters displaying both “good” and “bad” behavior, because that’s more realistic of human beings.
Haggis wasn’t trying to argue that stereotypes are misleading, right? Wasn’t was trying to say that racism permeates into every level of every culture.
I loved this movie. I agree with those who liked how it was so coincidental.
I thought the scene where Racist Asshole Cop rescued the woman from the car was incredibly moving. I do think that the situation made him confront his own racism, not just say that he’s a good person in spite of it. It’s hard to put to words.
I agree with the ‘Good Acting but bad writing’ crowd. It seemed like a very ernest screenplay by a talented 15 year old.
The movie had two notes to play. Everyone is a racist asshole and Everyone can be nice when they want to.
I was a bit confused by the time loop. It started with a car accident with the two cops involved and then DC walkes over to the scene of the murder, which the movie finally loops back to near the end but where was the first accident in the time frame.?
I’m completely with interface2x on this. Saw it when it first came out, and found it pretty much insufferably predictable and heavy-handed. I disagree with Trunk’s assessment that the writer meant to be contrived and manipulative, because nothing else about the writing led me to believe the writer was clever enough to put such a postmodern twist on it. I mean, it wasn’t Adaptation (which also sucked, but at least had the courage to incorporate its weaknesses as the overriding point; saying the negative elements of the writing in Crash were intentional just sounds like an excuse for the horribly hackneyed script, to me).
I just saw this last night to complete my Best Picture nominations viewing. I liked it quite a bit, and thought it was much better than the other films nominated this year. I agree with those of you who praised Don Cheadle–he was great. My favorite sceen was the one with the locksmith and his daughter and the invisible cape. Great, great sceen.
When I heard about this movie I thought “It sounds like that movie from 1991 with Steve Martin and Danny Glover, Grand Canyon.”
Then I saw it and thought “Yep, it was like Grand Canyon.”
It took me a few minutes to decide (and until the end of the film to confirm) that Cheadle and partner were headed to a murder scene, as they approached the Asian woman (Asians are bad drivers stereotype) rear-ends them.
Cheadle gets out of the car wreck and walks to the crime scene.
It was confusing, because I thought it might all be a delusion in Cheadle’s head for a while.
With a little bit of Pulp Fiction for seasoning.
I saw this movie tonight and I fear I’m in the “way overrated” camp. The fraternal connection was painfully obvious, the old cliche of a “a gun onstage in Act I will be fired in Act III” appeared, the notions that racism is a painfully complex and tragic and illogical and logical and emotional multifaceted thing is something that I already knew and I thought Ryan Philippe’s scene at the end was flawed on many levels. Much of the same territory was covered in far less time with far more wit in the song Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist from Avenue Q.
On the plus side, the acting was sensational all around and I’m really surprised that Matt Dillon is the only nominee. I thought Ludacris, Don Cheadle and Michael Peña were all at least as deserving. While the women’s roles weren’t as well written in my opinion, I did think that Shaniqua’s punchline at the end was very good.
All in all I’d never say this was a bad movie, but it wasn’t a great one either. I can’t imagine it being watched 10 years from now. (I wonder if the version shown at film festivals in 2004 was the same as the one shown in theaters several months later- that’s a longer span than usual twixt showings.)