Rook What You Did!

You no can drive!

Saw "Crash" today. Enjoyed it. Do I think it's accurate? Wellllll....it might be a teeny bit exaggerated. Crash, for those who don't know, follows the lives of ten or so citizens in Los Angeles who, when involved in any kind of car accident, immediately start throwing racial epithets at whomever the other driver is. Sorry, that's unfair. Sometimes there isn't a car involved, and the racial epithets are merely screamed outloud.

If I lived in the Los Angeles depicted in Crash, and I were rear-ended by an Asian woman, I would not calmly pull over to inspect the damage and ask her for her insurance information. No. Instead, I would leap out of my vehicle screaming as loud as I could. As soon as I'd notice she were Asian (all Asians are 'Chinamen' in this film) I'd openly mock her accent, screaming something like, "You no see blake light?! I hit BLAKE, why you no stop?!" She, in turn, would call me a nigger, but she'd say it with an Asian accent for comic effect.

The friend I saw this film with summed it up great. He said the film felt like it was written by a television writer that was frustrated with writing one-dimensional characters for TV. So in this film, every character is TWO-dimensional.

I still enjoyed it, despite the fact that everyone was over-the-top racist, as if it were impossible to be any other way. Like, you might think one of the characters is cool and open-minded and then, suddenly, they snap and do something kooky like kill someone. Or, you might be watching the movie thinking, 'Wow, this guy is TOTALLY racist and an a-hole!' and then, suddenly, he does something kooky like save a black person's life! WHAT! And your mind stutters...buh buh but...he just had a monologue were he went off on "those people"...and but, huh? And you half expect everyone to hug at the end of the movie and apologize. "Hey look, Chinaman. I want to apologize for running you over with my car. That wasn't cool of me."

Actually, there is a teary hug at the end. I won't say anymore.

Has anyone seen it? If so, what are your thoughts?