Crash

If there's anything worse than a film with no point, it's one that's all point and nothing but.

Instead of heartwarming messages about forgiveness, it honours ambiguity and brings us close, closer than is comfortable, in fact, to what Americans today are really thinking about one another.

[Crash] is familiar enough that it slips easily into our film-watching faculty without any fuss, yet [Haggis'] handling of it -- his muscular belief in what he is doing -- makes us hope that his next screenplay will be a bit less safe.

Crash is a very watchable and well-constructed piece of work, and a potential script masterclass: but its daringly supercharged fantasies of racial paranoia and humanist redemption are not to be taken too seriously.

The script is clever, the racial theme is worthy of Newsnight, and the editing just sublime.

Set in a simmering cauldron of racial tensions where subtle nuance can cut as deep as unambiguous hostility, it's a powerful drama about the often bewildering contradictions that underlie human behaviour.

The weakest of all five Best Picture Oscar nominees (not just Brokeback Mountain) for 2005, it's still a relevant movie that would have been even better had Haggis eased up on the gas every once in a while.

Crash is a bit too on the nose as it addresses racial tensions without much subtlety. The score, cinematography, and acting are all pretty outstanding, but it isn’t enough to save the tone-deaf Crash from feeling extremely contrived and overbearing.

Hampered by unrealistic dialogue and unpleasant characters, it delivers its portrayal of a world that needs changing in the most aggressive and obvious way possible.

The overall feeling is that the project is adamant about absolving the social system of blame.