Crash Hits the Heart

I always love to see what a filmmaker does with the first feature film after being a screenwriter. John Huston burst out of the blocks with "The Maltese Falcon," while "All About Eve" director Joe Mankiewicz started out slower, making "Backfire" in his directing debut after 17 years of writing scripts.

Paul Haggis has made more of a "Falcon" kind of splash with "Crash." He wrote "Million Dollar Baby," 2004's Best Picture, though his screenplay didn't win an Oscar. But that movie's writing was a promissory note on the payoff of Crash.

Who's Haggis? He earned nearly all of his stripes in TV, but some of the medium's best writing is on his resume. Tracy Ullman's show. LA Law. thirtysomething. Okay, he's also got credits for scripts for Love Boat and Due South. But there's 20 years of writing before he gets to make his first movie, an even longer stretch than Mankiewicz.

After I'd spent Memorial Day writing the day's news — holidays can be work days when you run your own newsletter — I took a movie break with my favorite gal and watched Haggis' fabulous story unfold at the Alamo Drafthouse. The movie carried high buzz from friends and family. You have a good idea of a movie's merit when a middle school principal in his 50s and a bank teller in his 20s both rave about it.

The movie earns its accolades. Crash brims with trouble, prejudice and heartbreak, from carjackings to the power of the stray bullet in LA. But while it paints a picture of people struggling to escape tragedy, it also gives some of them a chance at redemption. Like my friend Kate says, it's a movie where "Man falls into hole. Man climbs out of hole." We want trouble in our stories. Crash carries a story credit, something you don't see very often in modern movies. You can see why it deserves a separate credit for the story when the strands of its plot come together in a stout rope during a few scenes at the movie's end.

It helps a good story when the actors can pump up the characters. Crash has got Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser and most of all Don Cheadle, plus Sandra Bullock and Thandie Newton. The acting firepower propels dialogue crafted sharp enough to create tiny, standout roles. Watch for Keith David's commanding voice blistering off a few minutes of an arch scene as a black lieutenant in the LAPD. Hip-hoppers Ludacris and Larenz Tate play characters who expand stereotypes — so by the end of the film, the movie's tagline feels true: "You think you know who you are. You have no idea." There's even a Tony Danza scene that makes you believe he was underrated during his TV days.

Memorial Day gave us a memorable movie this year. We'll have to see a lot of films to find one better than Paul Haggis' directing debut. When you watch Dillon and Newton in their watershed second scene together, you might be moved to tears. Crash can make you cry over a story about the power of people to overcome their worst fears and hate, even if it does take a crash to shake their goodness free.

Link: Technorati on Film