10 Movies That Thought They Were Smart (But Really Weren't)

3. Crash

The winner of 2006's Best Picture Oscar rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way due to it beating out the Best Picture frontrunner, Brokeback Mountain, a film of considerably greater subtlety and artistry, even if for all intents and purposes, Crash is a solid film yet a rather underwhelming Oscar winner. Paul Haggis' intense drama focuses on the complexity of race relations over two days in Los Angeles, though despite amassing a huge and impressive ensemble cast, Crash takes the soft, safe option by simply throwing its hands up and saying "yep, everybody's probably a bit racist now and then." Not exactly that complex, then. Most of the movie's individual scenes are interesting to watch and beautifully acted, but they don't really add up to a compelling tableau in the same way that other similar movies like Traffic and Magnolia do because the goal here is so single-minded and morally unambiguous. For any moderately well-read, intelligent adult, the movie's "revelations" won't be surprising at all, and though it might try to posture itself as a slick sociology lecture, it really feels more like the cliff notes. In blanketing basically everyone with some form of a racism charge, Haggis' film pretends to be thought-provoking (after all, who knew that racism is bad?) all the while being careful not to offend any sector of society.
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Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.