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NOLAFugees Film Critic Feelicia Brown reviews this year's Oscar-winning race-play.
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Back last month me and Feelix watched the Oscars, and to be honest, we didn’t see many of the films nominated for best picture. Feelix ain’t into punk, so that rules out Brokeback Mountain and Capote. At Blockbuster Feelix noticed that Mexican actress, Jennifer Esposito, in the credits of the movie Crash, which also stars Don Cheadle, Ludacris, O-Dog, that light-skinned actress from ER, Matt Dillon, and the pimp from Hustle & Flow. I know Feelix wanted to see Esposito naked, and to be honest, that’s fine by me as long as we get a look at what Cheadle’s carrying around. You know what I’m saying? There are a lot of other people in the movie, so it can get confusing at times.
Crash starts off with Ludacris and his boy, O-Dog, who later turns out to be Cheadle’s brother-- but you don’t know this yet-- jacking a black SUV that belongs to the actor who starred in The Mummy and Sandra Bullock. Sandra comes off as a bitch, so you don’t feel bad for her, and The Mummy guy is the district attorney, always got to play the politics. But before that, you see Cheadle looking at a crime scene, some burning car off the highway or some shit like that. They confuse you by showing you this scene from the end of the movie and you got to ask, Why does Cheadle look so sad? He looks so sad because at the end of the movie, which is really the beginning, I guess, Cheadle’s brother O-Dog gets shot and killed by an off-duty police officer who honestly thinks O-Dog is pulling a gun on him, but really O-Dog is pulling out a St. Christopher medal. And you thought Mexicans were the only ones to put little statues on their dashboards; it makes you think. You feel so bad for their mother because you know how mothers love their youngest. Poor O-Dog.
Anyway, Crash is a movie you got to watch closely or you might miss something. I haven’t been to LA, but it seems like one of those big small towns, with everyone running into everyone. Like the Mexican guy who comes to change the lock on Sandra and the guy from The Mummy’s door, he’s also the same guy who fixes the lock for this old Persian man who owns store. At first you think he’s Muslim or from somewhere in the Middle East because his wife walks around with a thing on her head, but his daughter doesn’t do that, so it gets you wondering, and then later in the movie, after some racists have spray painted and destroyed their store, you find out they’re Persian, whatever that means. The old Persian man gets mad at the Mexican for not fixing his door right, even though the Mexican told him it was the door that was broken and not the lock, and this makes the Persian man get a phone book and hunt down the Mexican to get revenge. (And I thought the Persian couldn’t read English.) Then there’s a scary moment when you think the Mexican’s little girl is going to get killed, but she doesn’t because the Persian’s daughter bought blanks for the gun. If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is.
I guess Persian people are crazy, but you know what I learned from this movie? Chinese people are even crazier because the Chinese in this movie are selling people and shit. Human trafficking, I think they call it. It’s just another word for slavery, and that ain’t right.
In sense, I think, Ludacris is the real hero of this story because as it turns out, the Chinese man Ludacris and O-Dog accidentally run over when they jack the SUV is about to sell some other Asians, Thais or Cambodians, or some people like that. There’s a whole group of them in the back of this van. Good thing the Chinese guy gets run over because Ludacris is able to set free all those would-be slaves. Sound complicated? Yeah, well, Feelix fell asleep right after Cheadle and Esposito got it on.
You might be wondering about Matt Dillon, the light skinned girl from ER, and the pimp from Hustle & Flow. Well, your girl is giving her husband (the pimp from Hustle & Flow) a suck while he’s driving his black SUV, the same one that fits the description of guy from The Mummy’s and Sandra’s stolen vehicle. It turns out the pimp from Hustle & Flow is some Tom T.V. producer, always step and fetching for the white man, and if you ask me, he comes off as a little punk in this movie, with his hair conked and wearing a turtle neck. Good acting on your boy’s part—from pimp to punk. When they get pulled over and Dillon acts all nasty and shit and slips your girl the dirty finger, I’m like “No, he didn’t,” but he does, and your girl is pissed off at her Tom husband for not doing anything. Later on, you find out Dillon is stuck living with his father who’s got prostate trouble, so Dillon always got to be there to pull his daddy off the toilet. It ain’t a pretty scene, and I guess in a way you supposed to feel bad for Dillon.
Later in the movie, Dillon pulls the light skinned woman from a burning car, so I guess racist feelings evolve from the context of the situation. Dillon must have felt threatened by the wealth and power your girl and your pimp-turned-punk boy driving in their black SUV represented at that time, but now in a situation where the light skinned girl is totally helpless, Dillon can confidently assume a position of power. It’s like what Flannery O’Connor said of her characters showing their true selves or experiencing a moment of “grace” only when put in extreme situations usually brought on by violence. Or some shit.
Crash ain’t a movie to watch if you’re tired, but it sure taught me a few things: I already knew that white people are crazy, but I’d never heard of Persians before. Watch out from them, especially the older ones; they’re even crazier. The Chinese are willing to sell their own into the slavery, and they wrong for that. I also learned that Mexicans are hard-working, God-fearing people. As for Don Cheadle, they cut to like an inch below his belly button—couldn’t see a thing.
Feelicia Brown represents the UPT and reviews the cinema for NOLAFugees.com.
