Film Details:
Directed by David Cronenberg (eXistenz, The Dead Zone, Scanners, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Videodrome)
Written by
David Cronenberg (eXistenz, The Dead Zone, Scanners, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Videodrome)
J. G. Ballard (novel)
Starring
James Spader (Stargate, sex, lies, and videotape, Secretary)
Holly Hunter (Broadcast News, Home for the Holidays)
Rosanna Arquette (Pulp Fiction, After Hours)
Deborah Unger (Payback, The Game)
Review: by Melissa (e-mail your faithful reviewer)
Wow. I never thought that I'd see a David Cronenberg suck like a two-dollar whore with an overbite, but this film showed me the truth.
There are a few reviewers who praise this movie for its brave exploration of the separation of people struggling to connect through their unique fetishes and blah blah blah, but I think these people were just trying to rationalize the existence of this movie for some reason. Cannes even tossed an award to Cronenberg for this film, though I'd venture a guess it's because they felt bad for overlooking some of his other projects in the past. Either that, or they somehow equated high art with the placement of so many ardently unsexy sex scenes in a single film.
I mean, this movie has lots of sex. Lots of it. And car crashes. Lots of them, too. But even more sex than car crashes. Yet the movie is incredibly unsexy. Okay, I take it back -- the cinematography is cool and blue and kind of sexy. Unless there is sex going on. If there ever was a movie with a negative sex quotient, it's this one.
See, the movie is about people who fetishize car crashes. Sounds like a winner of a concept for Cronenberg, right? Weird sex and the blending of man and machine should be right up his alley, right? I mean, I saw Videodrome.
But it's sort of like Cronenberg set aside his own weirdness and tried on someone else's weirdness for size, and it didn't fit. If David Lynch made this film instead, it might have worked a lot better. Lord knows, this movie could use more midgets.
So, what is Crash, then?
Crash is about this guy (James Spader, who is apparently determined to not let sex, lies, and videotape be his weirdest film credit). This guy has weird sex with his girlfriend (Deborah Unger). This guy then gets in a car accident with Holly Hunter. They discover later that they get turned on by crashed cars. They have weird sex. They meet more people that get turned on by crashed cars. They all have weird sex with each other. Rinse. Repeat.
When I say that this film has no plot, I mean it. There is no plot whatsoever. Things occasionally happen, which only serve as devices to get different characters to have weird sex with each other. Literally, I swear that Cronenberg was sitting there with a checklist of all the characters. "Okay, those two have had sex, and those two have had sex, and... hey, has Spader had sex with Arquette yet? How about with that guy? No? Well, get them up there! Makeup!"
Unfortunately, the characters have nothing to do other than have sex, and are therefore Boring. Even the sex is Boring. Yes, I realize that Cronenberg was trying to make the characters disenfranchised with one another, but even dispassionate sex can at least be interesting. This is just Boring. The characters all look like they'd rather be somewhere else. Like in a Lynch film. At least they'd have midgets to look at.
I hate to say it, but don't even bother with this one. I want my 100 minutes back.
DVD Details:
