DVD/Video Pick of the Week, 11-12-05

City of Anger

Maybe one of the reasons Do the Right Thing didn't get all the awards people think it was owed is because it was so isolated. Spike Lee's masterpiece of a movie never stretched its setting further than the neighborhood. The movie was not so much about race as it was about people living together.
Crash is about race and people have to live together. The movie is set in Los Angeles, a city that is notorious for its racial barriers. East L.A. is home predominantly to the Hispanics. South Central is predominantly black. San Fernando Valley is white yuppies. Koreatown. Chinatown. It's a city of people of different races living together, but intentionally seperating themselves.
This is the first movie for director Paul Haggis, who wrote Million Dollar Baby, and it seems more like a character study rather than an story, which was what Do the Right Thing is.
If there is a central character, then it is Det. Graham Waters played by Don Cheadle who also helped produce the movie. Waters has a junkie for a mother and street hooligan for a brother. He is involved with his partner, Ria (Jennifer Eposito) who he refers to a Mexican. She isn't and finds the reference offensive.
Racism is partly misunderstanding. Waters calls his partner/lover she is Mexican. A Korean (Daniel Dae Kim) is repeatedly referred to as a "Chinaman." Iranian store owner Farhead (Shaun Toub) is called an Arab, even though he is really Persian. Patrol Sergeant Ryan (Matt Dillon) initially gets upset when he thinks Christine Thayer (Thandie Newton) is white and performed a lewd act on her husband, Cameron Thayer (Terrence Howard).
Another part of racism is a preconceive stereotype. Pampered surbanan housewife Jean Cabot (Sandra Bullock) gets upset when she sees locksmithDaniel (Michael Pena) changing her locks. He has a shaven head and visible tattos. Jean assumes his a gang member, when actually Daniel works hard to get his family away from the violent neighborhood. The movie nevers suggests anything about Daniel's past because we don't really need to know. He might have been in a gang. He might have gone to prison. Or he might have just gotten the tattoos when he was a kid thinking it made him look cool, but is more wiser now. Daniel and Farhead cross paths and anger when Daniel tries to tell him that the problem with his backdoor isn't the lock but the door. Farhead thinks the locksmith is trying to pull a scam on him, because he's Hispanic and has tattoos, which is ironic because Farhead has a previous run-in with a gunshop owner who thinks he's a terrorist. This leads to a later scene in which Farhead will be using the gun to inflict terror on Daniel because of the misunderstanding.
Cameron is a TV director who is told by his producer Fred (Tony Danza) that a black actor doesn't sound "black enough." Well, Cameron doesn't sound "black enough." Ria makes fun of a hysterical Korean woman's language when she means to say "brake" and it comes out "blake." Later in the movie, the same woman is running through a hospital screaming her husband names. A nurse thinks that she can't speak English, when she can.
The characters in this movie are anger. Sandra Bullock's character is angry that she lives a boring life because her husband Rick (Brendan Fraser) is the district attorney and makes enough money for her not to work. She mopes around the house all day and engaging in social activities with people she can't stand. Rick is more concerned about his appearance than anything else and a cop shooting will show just how pompous he will be since the cop shooting was a white cop shooting a black cop.
Matt Dillion's character blames affirmative action for hurting his father's business. But what he is really angry at is the fact that he is helpless because he has to now take care of his father who is in poor health and has terrible coverage. His rookie partner Hanson (Ryan Phillipe) doesn't want to work with him after Ryan humiliates Christine and Cameron Thayer in a traffic stop. Hanson would like to think of himself as not being racist, but his goodwill gesture toward Peter (Larenz Tate) will turn ugly.
Peter is a college student and carjacker. His partner in crime is Anthony (Ludacris.) Anthony is quite possibly the most angriest character in the movie and the most complex. He bashes a restaurant for not giving them good service and scoffs when Jean hugs her husband as they pass by them. Peter and Anthony carjack their Cadillac Escalade. But since they only rob white people, Anthony thinks it's alright. He objects to riding the bus, blasts rap music for its repeated use of the word "nigger," and criticizes other people he knows who committ "black on black" crimes. Anthony and Cameron will cross paths in an attempted carjacking where Cameron tells him that he is an embarrassment. Even when Anthony does a goodwill gesture at the end of the movie, he makes a racial comment. Change isn't easy and it isn't immediate.
A lot of critics have blasted Crash. It is not with its flaws. At times, you expect Keenan Ivory Wayans to pop up and say, "Message" like he did in Don't Be a Menance to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. Unlike The Laramie Project, which was about real people, we feel that these people have actual lives. This movie is set at Christmastime and they are scenes where Christmas ornaments and decorations pop up in the background after crucial scene. Christmas is about peace on earth and goodwill toward men. The characters in this movie learn that the peace is internal. They are not angry at each other, they are angry at themselves for how they think it should be, rather than what it is. Lives are saved and lives are lost. Some characters change and others don't. The movie begins with a car crash and ends with a car crash. What Haggis means by this is that there is no beginning and no end. While one person can change for the better, another can chage for the worst. Racism will never go away. People crash into each other and blame each other for the problems.
Crash is easily one of the best movies of the year.