Crash

The distributors have decided to dump all the Oscar Nominees on us to cash in on the Oscar week, and thus, I finally got to see Crash. It's a movie that strangely enough has sparked divergent reviews in office.

One group of people say that they couldn't see the point.
"You can be good also, you can be bad also... you can get hurt also, you can survive also...", said A today.

I agree a little bit with them. Some of the episodes in the movie were given too little time or attention - Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser were pretty much wasted*. So, were the Chinese couple**. Thus, at times, it is difficult to explain the character's actions.

However I agree more with Roger Ebert who says, "I make this sound almost like episodic TV, but Haggis writes with such directness and such a good ear for everyday speech that the characters seem real and plausible after only a few words." Was true for most of the characters.

WARNING: Spoiler follows
The movie was worth watching for me for two things:
1) Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillippe, with searing portraits of the bad cop and good cop. While most have lauded Matt Dillon for the contrast that he shows between scenes - effectively switching between tenderness and avarice, the haunting memory is Ryan Phillippe walking away from his car, which he burnt. He had just killed someone because he perceived a threat, when there was none. One of the two people who appear in 'white' through the movie (the other is the locksmith), finally ends up killing another. And he doesn't even report it to the Police.
2) The episode of the Iranian shopkeeper and the locksmith's daughter. The shopkeeper tells his daughter, "Today I shot at a little girl, but nothing happened.... she was a farishta", after he comes back from his mission. The girl in question had ran out to save her father, who didn't have the 'magic cloak' to save him. Really beautifully done.

All in all, this week's started well. Hopefully, Capote and Memories of a Geisha will live upto the promise.

* except for the scene where right after he wants her to keep quiet and not be a racist about the locksmith, he comes up with a solution of awarding a black policeman to escape the controversy of his carjacking. "Why did they have to be black?" says the District Attorney, about his carjackers.
** though I couldn't help but smile when the man asks his wife to encash the cheque.

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