Not David Cronenberg's somewhat controversial and, if memory serves, epically tedious "Crash" - although it begins with a sly reference to it - but a new and entirely different one. Well, nearly different: this one has many similar flaws, even if the end result is rather easier on the eye.
Thing is, it's just so bloody laboured. Given that the movie's essential premise - that racial tension threatens to pull society apart - is itself a dramatic construct, the burden of proof becomes overwhelming. For an hour, every single character in every single scene is the scriptwriter's tool, and there's absolutely nothing that doesn't eventually resolve into some kind of racial motivation.
It gives you no room to breathe, to get to know what else the characters' lives might be about; it feels as if stereotypes are merely being shuffled around for the film's own ends, that they're being used as much as examined. If there is complexity, it's in the plot - an evident debt to "Magnolia" is made explicit by a musical finale, but is present throughout - and not in the writing itself, which never gets beneath anyone's skin. Literally.
That first hour is exhausting, but not for the reasons that it should be. The effort is later rewarded by a couple of superb, though convoluted, set pieces in which dramatic tension is pulled cheesewire-tight, rescuing the film as a spectacle if not as a piece of social commentary. Another of these is wrecked by over-obvious clues earlier on, but still, there's a sense of urgency and danger that makes your nerves prickle for the first time.
And then, inevitably, it's wasted by an ending so utterly trite that the film almost eats itself, reducing its own impact to a bland nothingness. It's not easy to make a good film about racial politics. It's not easy, and this ain't it.
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