About those "message" films

I'm late to the party. I just this week saw the Best Picture of 2005, Crash.

That's "the best"? Oh, such a sorry state Hollywood is in.

Crash isn't a bad film, per se, but it's not exactly great, either. I did enjoy the casting and the performance. I was frankly surprised at how well Ludacris performed. His introductory bit with Larenz Tate is the highlight of the film. The lines are perfect, the delivery perfect, the humor is perfect. In fact, watching that scene you have the sensation that you're about to watch an amazing satire unfold. Unfortunately, no, this is meant to be a "serious" film.

Too bad, because it would have been great satire and made precisely the same points in a much better way. As it is, it continues Paul Haggis's deceitful career.

Deceitful, you ask? Well, yes, because he presents these serious films with serious topics for serious discussion...and then creates utter falsehoods. Attend me...

Haggis wrote the Best Picture of 2004, Million Dollar Baby. Now, for the most part it's a pretty good flick. Despite the purported lack of realism, I loved the boxing sequences. The editing, the photography, the directing, are all excellent. But the film completely collapses after The Accident.

It's been over a year, I'm going to assume everyone knows the plot twist. If you don't, if you haven't seen the film but plan to, stop now or you'll just be pissed off at me.

You've been warned.

Throughout the film, Maggie (Hilary Swank) has been portrayed as a fighter. I don't mean just in the boxing ring, I mean in life. She fights here way into adulthood, she fights her way to independence from her family, she fights for Frankie (Clint Eastwood) to train and manage her, etc. She does not give up, she does not quit, she wins. Always.

So she suffers that horrendous accident that renders her a quadrapalegic and, voila, she suffers a compete 180-degree reversal in personality. She is now a quitter. "Kill me! I cannot live like this!"

That is so utterly in opposition to how the character was established that it's trash. Certainly characters can suffer such reversals; certainly people in real life do. But a better writer would have shown the descent, would have shown the fight, would have shown her losing this last, crucial fight for character. (Or, as I'd prefer, winning; she is, after all, a winner.)

So Haggis hacks this bit so he can get on to his real issue, the right to die, the right to have a quality life. Frankie consults his priest, but his priest is an idiot who can't even discuss the Trinity of the Catholic faith correctly (another Haggis gaff; Catholic priests live to discuss the nature of the Trinity).

Now we get to the stuff that really irritates the crap out of me. Her treatment at the hospital is horrific. She suffers gangriene and has to have a leg amputated. She tries to swallow her own tongue, to kill herself, and they...well, you get the picture. It's ugly and it is a complete crock of shit. This hospital is described as "the best", yet they are essentially torturing this bed-bound patient. And no one kicks their ass!

Because we are getting to Haggis's message, his moral. Maggie wants to die, and Frankie must kill her. Euthanasia, mercy killing, the thing that until very recently was illegal throughout the land (the recent development being the Supreme Court upholding the Constitutionality and legality of Oregon's "assisted suicide" statute).

This is important to understand. The issue wasn't the right to die, the issue was assisted suicide. Haggis wanted to illustrate a person's right to have someone kill them.

But the presentation is utter horseshit. Maggie is forever trapped in a bed and living off a respirator. If a patient in that condition turns to her doctor and says, "Turn my damn breathing machine off", what do you think happens? All the doctor has to do is determine that the patient is rational. He can then adminster pain medication and he'll then unplug the damn machine.

That's "right to die". It is black letter, chiseled in stone law in the United States. Everywhere. Including California.

So in reality once the medical staff heard Maggie say she wants off life-support, they take her off life support and off she goes. Done deal.

So at its core, Million Dollar Baby is a lie. It creates a false scenario with a false resolution. It sucks.

Crash is not quite that bad, but it shows the same stain of dishonesty. I don't mean in its portrayal of Los Angeles, but in how its characters behave. Everyone is a stereotype and everyone lives up to their stereotype. The above mentioned scene between Ludacris and his partner is a case in point. They keep joking back and forth, and then proving the "validity" of the stereotype they're discussing. If the film had been satire, that would have been great. But it isn't, so it isn't.

In Crash, every character of every race is a rascist. Fine, we all suffer some degree of the stain of racism. In Crash, every character is a stereotype. Fine, every stereotype has some, no matter how thin, link to reality. But in Crash, every character, when under any degree of stress, openly vents their rascism.

And that's a crock.

One of the most egregious examples is Ria (Jennifer Esposito), who at the start of the film has been in a traffic accident. She goes out to talk to the officer investigating the accident, but he's busy talking with the Asian driver of the other car. The two drivers hurl racial epithets. Fine for the Asian, but Ria is a cop. Am I really to believe that an LAPD detective is going to be so blatantly racist in front of so many witnesses and at such a time? Wouldn't such a person be just slightly less obvious?

On and on, the film drowns itself in the over-the-top manner in which its characters vent their inner rascist. Ruins the experience big time.

There are jewel like moments. There is one scene guaranteed to make you stop breathing. Oh yes, you're being blatantly manipulated, but it's a pretty well gone bit of manipulation.

And the subtle humor of the shopkeeper's daughter (I can't remember her name, and thus can't name the actress who portrayed her), in her gentle interactions with her father at the end, are beautiful. This is especially so when you reflect on the same characters at the beginning of the film and realize what she did. (Sorry, don't want to give away too much.)

So Crash isn't as inherently dishonest as Baby, but it continues Haggis's penchant for dishonesty in his characters and plot. I am not excited about what he might crank out next.

Now, off to find a copy of Capote!