Five Overappreciated Films

September 7th, 2011 | POSTED BY Benjamin Rendall

1. Crash. This movie would not have made it so high on my list if it hadn’t won Best Picture. I almost stopped watching the Academy Awards after that night, and here is why. Crash is supposed to be this important movie looking at racism. However, rather than examine or give the subject real weight, Crash becomes overwrought with coincidences and over-the-top antics. Too often characters do something outrageous and speak in such outrageous ways, either saying racist dialogue or making weird pronouncements at a moment’s notice,about different beliefs of racism in the city, to the point where they seem to exist just to make these speeches.

It is so over the top and so unrealistic that you can never take the movie seriously, especially since it is such an emotionally manipulative film. It wants you to feel things for these characters, yet these characters have no development; they serve simply as archetype of characteristics—the African American street thugs that the more affluent African American can feel anger at for making his life more difficult, for example. Then the Caucasian racist cop who then does a brave deed for an African American woman so he has “complexity” in his role. The Caucasian non-racist cop who does something horrible later to show how anyone can be racist. The rich white woman, who claims to be angry all the time, then makes a pronouncement to her Hispanic maid that she is her best friend, despite no scenes with them beforehand building to any of this. It makes no sense at all!

Then there is this scene that really overplayed the “emotional tone.” (SPOILER) A Persian man thinks he was cheated and goes after the Hispanic locksmith, even thought the locksmith had nothing to do with it. This Hispanic man has a daughter who thinks she has this “invisible cloak” to protect her from bullets. She sees that her father is being threatened and runs out into his arms. He believes that his daughter has been shot and we get this long camera shot circling over them as he cries out and all I could think was, “My gosh just tell me if she is dead or not! I do not care, the scene has nothing to do with racism. It is a cheap emotional effect to make me pretend that the movie is talking about something important!” (SPOILER ENDS)

In the end, Crash feels like a self-important movie that wants to believe it is really looking at a pervasive issue, but it has no idea how to really address the problem. Even worse, it gives the audience nothing to really think about. The issue is still vague with no questions or ideas being really raised.

I am certain there will be some negative comments, but hey that’s what film and film reviews are for, spirited discussion.

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Crash, Knocked Up, Spider-Man 2, The English Patient, Wall-E