Originally Posted by aberkok

I just have to bump this because I just watched the movie and I was fuming for pretty much the whole thing, and not because I hate racism, but because of how poorly the story was put together. I'm lumping this in with the other two movies I despise...and I know I'm going to take a lot of flak for this: Dancer in the Dark and Requiem for a Dream.

All of these films have one key element in common which make me really mad. That is emotional manipulation by the writers. It seems that to aid in the characters' downfall, the writer (or writers) had to implement a excessive series of coincidences. The results of these coincidences being either a character has something horrible happen to them, or that they have some kind of revelation. I don't doubt that these things happen in real life...just not so many times in quick succession. I swear there must have been at least a dozen such coincidences in Crash. SPOILER AHEAD: Spoiler: One of the above posters asked why Don Cheadle's character's brother (the nicer of the two carjackers) didn't tell Ryan Phillipe about the statue of St.Christopher in his pocket....well if he did, then he wouldn't have been shot, would he? If he was smart enough to know that he was in a place where "not a lot of brothers get picked up," then would he know not to reach into his pocket after being picked up hitchhiking? What else...the blank ammo bought by the Persians.....by the end of the film it starts getting really dumb....the Persian girl works at the hospital where Cheadle's brother's body is....the Health Office lady (who argues with Matt Dillon) gets her car rear-ended...the list goes on...

Fine. It's only a movie, but it makes me angry when people equate getting emotional with the quality of a film. When you react to a film like this you are not reacting to the message of the film, you are reacting to the cheap emotional manipulation wrought by the filmmaker.

I liked Magnolia, though. It didn't take a high moral ground and right from the start, it lets you know it's nothing but a surreal film (which is supposed to have funny moments). It doesn't take itself as seriously as the "terrible three."

Don Cheadle pwns, though...bring on Miles Davis!!