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121 out of 136 people found the following comment useful :-
This film is fascinating but definitely not for everyone, 1 June 2004
Author: patrezzi from Toronto, Canada

I love this film. I have now viewed it three times and I still keep getting something new out of each viewing.

I think it's one of Cronenberg's best. It is not, however, for the uninitiated. By that, I mean those who are not familiar with Cronenberg's previous work, and those who have not read J.G. Ballard, whose novel was the basis for this film.

Cronenberg excels at bringing difficult pieces of fiction to film. This is one such example.

The written works of J.G.Ballard are generally, dark, dreary, and disturbing psychological fiction. The characters in them are often very disturbed and socially dysfunctional. These are people who, often due to unusual circumstances, are not in their right minds.

In Crash, we are observing a group of characters who are all survivors of horrific car crashes. Like many crash survivors, they are, during their period of recovery, in shock. They are badly shaken. They are recovering from severe physical injuries, and they are disoriented, fearful, and emotionally numb.

Instead of recovering in the normal fashion, (how sad that we've come to think of auto accidents as normal) these characters stumble into the car crash cult of Vaughan. Vaughan, who is brilliantly portrayed by Elias Koteas, is a scientist who believes that there is a strong connection between the violence of a car crash and the passion of the sexual act.

He easily indoctrinates the other characters into his mode of behavior and beliefs. By staging car crashes for entertainment, by initiating traffic altercations with his followers and ultimately finishing with some very warped sex, usually involving cars, there is a metaphor being created. Accidents, and the viewing of them becomes foreplay. It's the eroticism of the automobile taken to an extreme.

Our society has had, what is often referred to as a "love affair" with the automobile. This love affair has resulted in a worldwide addiction to a means of transportation that is, in reality, often very unhealthy and destructive. Aside from the aftermath of pollution and the sheer carnage of the ever rising highway accident rate, this addiction also increases people's isolation from each other. Hidden in their private shells, they move about, only interacting with one another as necessary. This interaction rarely becomes intimate until it is violent, as in aggressive driving and accidents .

In Crash, the characters are all portrayed as cold hearted, numb, and incapable of true intimacy with each other(they sure have a lot of sex though). They are only capable of intimacy through their cars.

This film is a bizarre metaphor for the human condition and how it is affected by our choice of technology. It is not meant to make car crashes look sexy. It is meant to draw attention to how our most familiar technology has changed us and made us less human.

I love this film. Brilliant cast. Great cinematography. An excellent soundtrack by Howard Shore (multiple layers of cleanly played, very dissonant electric guitar, sounding like a cross between Sonic Youth and Brian Ruryk). Only Cronenberg would have the guts to tackle a subject as difficult as this particular work of Ballard's. I think he did quite well.

Depending on your mood at the time of viewing, this film can range from being shocking, amusing, revolting, hilarious, to even just plain boring. It's a great piece of art, but you really do have to be in the right mood for it.

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119 out of 138 people found the following comment useful :-
An anti-erotic exploration of the hollowness of modern life, 13 December 1999

Author: glaurung-2 from Toronto, Canada

Crash is a very sexually explicit film, but if you buy or rent this movie expecting it to be an evening's erotic entertainment, you are going to be disappointed, because it is also an anti-erotic film.

Even in the midst of frenzied lovemaking, the characters remain distant, their voices quiet and abstracted, their gazes directed inward. These are people who have been told all their lives by their culture, by TV and movies, that sex is, on the one hand, the most perfect form of communion and connection with another human being; and, on the other hand, that it is the ultimate in transcendent and transformative experiences. Instead, they discover to their horror that even during sex they still feel nothing. They crave connection, they are starved for a glimpse of transcendence, but no matter what they do, no matter who they do it with or how often, while their bodies may feel passion, their minds and hearts remain cold and empty.

In the more recent movie Pleasantville, the Jennifer/Mary Sue character is unable to feel anything either, and remains stubbornly black and white no matter how much sex she has, until her brother suggests that "maybe it isn't the sex" that is the key to moving from black and white to color, from passionlessness to feeling. Unfortunately, in Crash, there is no one to suggest to David and Catherine Ballard that maybe it isn't through sex that they will find the transformation and connection they are craving. So they instead seek more and more extreme forms of sexual stimulation, only to be disappointed again and again.

James is hurt in a car crash, and during his stay in the hospital he meets Helen (who was in the other car) and later Vaughan, a man who like James and Catherine is in desperate search of feeling, only he looks for it in the violence of car crashes. With Helen, at first James, then Catherine too is drawn into Vaughan's world, where sex and death (eros and thanatos for you Freudians) meet in the twisted metal of wrecked cars and the mutilated bodies of the victims of fatal car crashes and the survivors of near-fatal ones.

They attend staged recreations of famous car crashes, like the one that killed James Dean. They have sex in crashed cars, and start touring crash sites on the freeway as a form of foreplay. They begin to watch films of crash tests and fatal race accidents like other people would watch erotic films, and to have sex with people whose bodies have been mutilated by car crashes.

But not even the horror of mutilation or the adrenaline rush of near-death experience can lend James and Catherine's desperate coupling the depth of feeling that they so desperately crave.

Like all the people who buy expensive automobiles to give them a feeling of power and independence, only to discover that no matter how snazzy their car is, they still feel powerless and unhappy, James and Catherine have bought into one of our culture's Big Lies, that sex is the answer. This film shows us that it is not.

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86 out of 111 people found the following comment useful :-
What a bunch of weirdo's! Awesome movie!, 30 December 2003

Author: Skeptic459 (nren006@ec.auckland.ac.nz) from Auckland, New Zealand.

Crash caused a huge stir in the United Kingdom. Many conservatives were outraged by the combination of sex, already an issue of danger because of aids, and traffic accidents. Dangerous driving is like smoking, a subject that you just can't touch without many moral watchdogs chasing you through a hellish puritan junkyard.

I remember seeing this and a middle aged to elderly man in the theater began to quite obviously...ahem...trouser cough. This was one hell of a way to clear the cinema! That moment is pretty much like this film. Crash has weird sex and masterbation, stuff that you do not really want to see. But David Cronenberg with the help of James Ballard drags us into a world that just takes the whole 'I love cars' boy racer thing way too far! It is just not healthy...

Ballard writes in a bleak monotone. A monotone that Chuck Palahniuk seeks to imitate unsuccessfully. All of his characters are alien because of their lack of emotion. Cronenberg takes this aspect and runs with it. This makes the film good not because of the familiarity and sympathy that the viewer can build with the characters. It is actually quite the opposite, the film strikes the viewer because of the sheer UNREALITY of what is happening. The complete and utter icy way that everything is presented just leaves the viewer going 'what?' Am I watching a bunch of jellyfish here? The characters are so jaded. Trying desperately to experience emotion in an industrialized emotionless world. A world that has become nothing more than a production line. Good Ford! Sorry, Huxley joke. Nerdy but necessary.

Also, Cronenberg is presenting a discourse that the famous intellectual Donna Haraway puts forward. That basically the human race has become cyborgs. The the human form is constantly changing. That machines are changing our humanity and crash seems to say that our own sexuality can mingle with the mundane machines that we hold so dear. Oh no! I am getting flashbacks of the crazed artist Stellarc...no...no...no! Besides I bet in the future, terminators would make much more money as sexual partners, rather than as assassins. Imagine that, a beautiful spouse who always thinks your right and never argues with you. I LOVE THE FUTURE!

Sex is considered to be the ultimate joining of two people. The most intimate way that human beings can connect to one another. Wrong! This film suggests that sex means...well, nothing really. Procreation and a simple physical reaction. This is shown by James Spader and his wife's, Deborah Unger, relationship. These two are so jaded they tell each other their sexual adventures for attempted excitement but feel absolutely nothing. Certainly not some sought of emotional closeness to one another.

This film is just so incredibly empty. But it is also a comment on the human condition. How we make almost suicidal attempts to attain pleasure. If this was a film about heroin for instance, about junkies, this film would be much more understandable. Ballard has taken this addictive, self destructive behaviour and replaced it with an everyday object. The motor car. It is a brilliantly simple idea! But look at how many people it has horrified and offended! C'mon people, are we really this stupid? Sex and drugs, sex and violence. Sex, drugs and violence. These things are all o.k. Portrayed constantly in Hollywood movies. Van Diesel anybody? But sex and car accidents, how dare you? What kind of a sick freak are you??!! Consider how hypocritical this is when you watch something like Fast and the Furious.

This is also a film that features the psychological nature of fetish heavily. Instead of having the common fetish for breasts or bottoms, which again people might find more understandable. The fetish is actually for wounds and crash test dummy videos! That scene with Rosanna Arquette, ewww! Would that work? This is definitely something that no one should try at home.

David Cronenberg really deserves credit for making this film. He really has some big balls and respects the intelligence of the audience, which I however do not. All of the actors deserve much credit for taking on some truly difficult material. They must really trust the director. I'm surprised no one said 'no David, you are out to lunch on this one!' This film could have become a parody so easily. Never have I seen a film where everyone in the audience seemed so uncomfortable with the material. In fact, when I saw this film without the trouser coughing, people still walked out. It hasn't been since Salo that I have see a movie upset so many people. I give this 8 out of 10 for sheer weirdness. A great moment in a major auteur's career who is not afraid to take risks. Hollywood take note!

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23 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
Sexiest Motion Picture to Date!, 16 June 2007

Author: m- d from United States

When Cronenberg's "Crash" came out in the theaters in Seattle, the audiences gave it standing ovations. Of course, that's Seattle! James Spader was thinner & sensuous playing the lead man's role. Debra Unger & he have quite the cinematic chemistry to generate steaming sexual scenes.

Car crashes are a group of fetishists' thing to get off on. Some re-stage famous fatal ones: Jimmy Dean's, Jane Mansfield's. The car crash fetish ring leader drives a town-car like JFK was assassinated in.

Holly Hunter is extremely surprising as she plays a bisexual car crash fetishist physician who is way into having sex in cars; most especially after near crashes.

I don't know how this film got away with a R rating! But, I'm glad it did! It's a scorching hot sexy motion picture with one heck of a deviant plot. I bet even director John Waters liked this one. . . .

Surprisingly, there is romance in the movie. Spader & Unger stay together throughout all other crash scenario flings. The most fascinating thing about Cronenberg's "Crash" is how true to life it is & was in Seattle, when it first came out.

"Crash" is a remarkable study of fetishism. That's why it is not pornographic. Yes, the numerous adult sex scenes are extremely graphic; but, Cronenberg prevents the subject matter from being degraded into pornography.

With an amazing star cast, "Crash" not only was, but still is, one of the most controversial movies today. Doubtless some of the audiences have to ask themselves, "Are there really people like these?" The answer is overwhelmingly, indeed there are. Cronenberg & cast was the group brave & brazen enough to get real about human sexualities.

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26 out of 39 people found the following comment useful :-
A superb movie., 26 January 1999
Author: Glyn Ingram (mringram@hotmail.com) from London, England

In the book "Cronenberg on Cronenberg," a study of director David Cronenberg's movies, the Canadian filmmaker criticises film theorist' Robin Wood's ideological beliefs that certain movies should be seen if they encourage or take a partciular moral stance, even if they're not outstandingly good pictures. For Cronenberg to criticise this belief is understandable. Movies don't have to be moral and go along with certain ideas or cultural stances to be worthy of critical debate or discussion. Because David Cronenberg's movies are often what's described as 'immoral,' they're consequently criticised for being sick, perverse, and sometimes downright depraved.

In 1996, The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, launched a campaign to see that "Crash" wasn't released in Britain. Led by their useless film critic Christopher Tookey (The man who thought 'Martha: Meet Frank, Daniel and Lawrence' was a brilliant picture), the newspaper was intent on seeing that the picture never made it onto British screens. They attacked the BBFC's decision when the film was eventually (And quite rightly) passed uncut. The newspaper's campaign was a short-lived, desperate joke. Two years later, "Crash" is available to rent on video uncut, and can be viewed on satellite TV in the UK. And, more importantly, during this period, the world-wide death rate that "Crash" has been linked to totals in at 0.

"Crash" is, in fact, a superb movie; a film like no other. I've now seen it many times, read a great deal of literature, essays and articles about it, including Cronenberg's genuinly fascinating own writings about the movie. In direct response to the opening paragraph I've written, I want to take this opportunity to 'Explain' "Crash" to those audiences who liked it but couldn't fully understand 'It's point' (As so many people say), and those, who, for various reasons absolutley hated it. In my writing, I want to deconstruct and 'Explain' the movie as simply as possible; believe it or not, I hate most film theories I read (Many are just plain ridiculous!), but, "Crash" is clearly a film that requires an alternative reading, and is certainly worthy of debate and discussion.

If one is willing to suspend their own morals and beliefs when viewing a film such as "Crash," the pleasure of seeing the film is incredible. For those reading this who haven't seen the film, hopefully this may encourage you to take a look, and ignore all the silly media negativity that surrounded it on its release. After all, if you're still concerned that this '18' Certificate movie could encourage people to crash their cars, then you must also be concerned about the thousands of 'U' and 'PG' rated movies where guns and violence often make up much of the plot. After all, "Crash" doesn't contain any of either.

Based on the 70's novel by British author JG Ballard, "Crash" is the story of film producer James Ballard and his wife Catherine, and their slow departure into a warped World where sexual pleasure is achieved in car crashes. Led by Elias Koteas, the underground group lead their lives in a bizarre way, fascinated by both car crashes and their bloody and often horrid consequences.

First of all, lets establish the most ridiculous element of "Crash." It's the car crashes themselves, of course. For someone to get sexual pleasure out of crashing a car is bizarre and laughable to say the least. In fact, as one critic wrote, it's something that would only happen in movies! I don't think there's much debate about that. So, we have to look at an alternative reading. What can this bizarre sexual ritual actually represent? It can and, indeed, does work as a perfect metaphore for the link between both sex and death, and pain and death. There's certainly no debate to say that a link exists between both, like it or not. Therefore, when we witness a car crash in the movie, the movie is exploring these concepts that, in reality, DO exist.

But there's another element to the car-crash concept of the movie, and that's the link the film makes between sex and technology. In his interviews about the picture, Cronenberg also explores some interesting cultural issues that combine the three aforementioned concepts; for instance, he questions just why so many people nowadays have their bodies pierced in such bizarre places; they often look painful, feel painful, but are so frequently done to look attractive!

When watching "Crash," it's often easy to get the impression that, somehow or other, you've lost the narrative; one never feels as though they're quite understanding the movie. This is deliberate, and, encourages the audience to watch as a spectator, rather than as someone who relates to the protagonists. For instance, the script, story and direction make little or no attempt for us to relate to James Ballard. This is where "Crash" is very much a David Cronenberg movie, as strong parallels can be drawn with many of his previous works. Take "The Fly," for example. Before and during the making of the 1986 movie, Cronenberg had been encouraged to make Jeff Goldblume's character (Seth Brundel), a normal, everyday fella, rather than the mad, eccentric scientist that he is. But, as Cronenberg expresses, that's not interesting! It's obvious how an everyday, conventional person would respond to the horrors explored in "The Fly," making the film conventional and much more mainstream. The same applies to "Crash...." ....At the start of the movie, James Ballard and his wife are already locked into a bizarre sexual World. The very first scene shows Catherine Ballard in an aircraft hanger about to have sex; the scene has two effects - It links sex and technology immediately in a very in-your-face-way, and, most importantly, it also stops us relating to the character. There's little dialogue; we never see the man she's with again, and the scene that follows this is a more frantic sex sequence with James Ballard, again with an annoymous character; an obvious parallel with the aircraft hanger part.

Later on, to encourage this impossible-to-relate to the characters effect, Cronenberg uses endless techniques; nearly all the cast mysteriously whisper their dialogue throughout, and we're told next to nothing about anyones background. Interestingly, however, the career of James Ballard is one of a film producer.

"Crash" isn't realism and Cronenberg doesn't want it to be, nor does he try to make it 'real.' An endless number of things happen in the movie that couldn't and wouldn't happen in real life, but, by being in place, create the atmosphere needed, and, of course, help the narrative. For instance, the scene in which the main character's begin to photograph a nasty night-time car crash is ridiculous; swarming with Police, such a thing would never happen! "Crash," is, in fact, a complete fantasy.

It's perhaps worth noting at this point just how brilliant Howard Shore's score is for this movie. Creating a suitable score for this bizarre tale must have been a hard job, but Shore's music isn't far from being perfect. There's an odd, clanging-metal type pace to it throughout, more than suitable and relevant to the film. And, although this isn't a movie where actors are rarely given the chance to shine, all performances are above-par, especially when one takes into account the difficult and complex themes that the film deals with. By bringing the incredibly sexy Rosanna Arquette in on the proceedings, Cronenberg has also put some much-needed humour into the film; the car-showroom scene is a painfully funny moment of dark humour.

The sex scenes in the movie are also more than vital; as already mentioned, the first set work as perfect parallels, but, more importantly, they can often be read in their own entirety. When James is making love to his wife mid-way through the movie, it's obvious that the film is both drawing a parallel between the love-making and car-crashing (Observe the positioning of the characters!), and, even more importantly, with the dialogue, it's clear that Catherine is actually making James fantisise about having sex with a certain other character in the movie.

There is an endless amount of interesting things about "Crash" one could say, and it really is a great movie. If you haven't seen it, take a look. It isn't always easy to sit through, and it sometimes verges on becoming too much to take with sex scene after sex scene. However, so many intelligent things can come from seeing it, and it really is a great movie, making David Cronenberg one of the greatest filmmakers working today.

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27 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
Curious, odd, but flawed examination of sexuality/identity., 26 January 1999

Author: Mark Severin (meseverin@worldnet.att.net) from www.deepfriedhappymice.com

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

David Cronenberg's most recent film. Set in Los Angeles, James Spader and Deborah Unger play a couple drawn into an underworld of odd characters who are sexually aroused by automobile crashes. Spader discovers this when he hits Holly Hunter's car head on, killing her husband. They become lovers, meeting in a parking garage, having (unsatisfying) sex in a parked car. Later they are involved with a clique that re-enacts famous crashes for excitement.

It's a fascinating premise and it starts off quite promising. However, Spader's patented flat, emotionally dead anti-hero never shows a spark of life. Nor do any of the other characters. And yet, while there is an attempt to capture that serene surface perfected by David Lynch, the attempt fails. In the end we do not care what happens to any of these characters. It becomes an exercise in guessing who will sleep with who next. Even the final scene, in which Spader and Unger are brought back together, fails to move because we have never cared about either of them. It felt like getting the news that your cousin twice removed, who you have never met, is getting married. You know you are supposed to feel happy for them but, frankly, you just don't care.

On the other hand, the movie is visually lush, and does take some legitimate risks. Spader has a gay sex-scene that, as tame as it was, is a true rarity in American theaters. Even "Faith! Hope! and Glory!" did not come close. One scene deserves especial mention. A group including Spader, Hunter, and Rosanne Arquette are watching video tapes of safety tests of automobiles, starring the test dummies. As they watch they become increasingly aroused. They are all completely absorbed in films that were shot by engineers. Like low-budget porn, the videos are grainy, out of focus, and have no camera movement. Nevertheless, the scene is oddly hysterical.

Cronenberg also keeps close to home in another way. He always seems to be obsessed with violation. In his films this is represented literally. Here we have a number of characters whose bodies are violated with pins and braces administered by doctors. Not for the squeamish, although the scenes are not gory. But to see the male nurse just poking at people's apparatus and wounds is unsettling (recalls the Monty Python skit where the major missing a leg has it poked by his superior office, asking if it hurts).

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30 out of 50 people found the following comment useful :-
Driving around in cars, with sex, 15 May 2004

Author: paul2001sw-1 (paul2001sw@yahoo.co.uk) from Saffron Walden, UK

David Cronenburg's interesting but flawed film 'Crash', adapted from James Ballard's novel (Ballard also gives his name to the leading character), attracted huge amounts of controversy on its release and has one of the most striking voting profiles on IMDB that I have seen - also equal returns for every number from 1 to 10. In fact, there's a lot of admire in this sweaty, atmospheric adaptation that perfectly captures the sense of heightened alienation that charactersises much of Ballard's prose. While among the cast, Deborah Kara Unger is sexy as always, Elias Koteas is suitably creepy and even James Spader is kind-of OK, if you don't mind him doing that "lost little college boy grown up to be a pervert" thing that he first perfected as Graham in 'Sex, Lies, and Videotape', a role he basically reprises here.

But - and let's get real for a minute - this is a film about people who are turned on by car crashes! Now, what the hell is that all about? If you ask me, the film is trying to say something about the need for transgression in an age with no real taboos - so its characters push at an endlessly receding door, until in the end only death itself can offer a way out. The problem is that the film suffers from the same problems as the world it portrays - these people have no moral rules, so their actions carry no implications beyond themselves - which leaves us with an idea, with happenings, but no narrative "drive" as such. Without anything to set against their nihilistic desires, 'Crash' coveys no sense of tragedy; just driving around in cars, with sex.

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14 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
The Orgasm of Burning Rubber., 13 March 2006

Author: Yuto_Zeiram from Netherlands

"How many orgasms per mile can you get ?" This is one of the catching tag lines of the movie "Crash". Again Cronenberg delivers a dive into human psychic, the world of dark obsession, and twisted fantasy's.

The plot:

A sexually frustrated couple starts experimenting with the outlines of anonymous sex. It is the husband James Ballard (James Spader) who gets into a car crash with Dr. Ellen Remington (Holly Hunter) and her husband. They crash frontally and both Ballard and Remington are seriously injured. Remington's husband dies while being launched from his seat through his own windshield into Ballards. Ballard ends up in the hospital, traumatized, trying to recover from his injuries. He gets into deeper contact with Helen Remington. Their mutual Crash-victim status brings them closer together, ultimately delivering them into the sump-oil-soaked world of the pathological Vaughan (Elias Koteas). Renagade scientist and leader of a strange subbterranean group, Vaughan is only able to achieve sexual release by crashing into people on the motorways surrounding Heathrow airport. Getting sucked into his world, Ballard becomes obsessed with car crashes, and dives into the illegal world of "thrill seeking" and raw and hard (but mostly cold) sex.

The review:

To be quiet honest "Crash" is a very underestimated picture. First of all there are a serious amount of people who thought that the subject was laughable, and not to be taken serious, for how could you take something like this serious ?

After crashing your car and being injured, having sex with the victim of a car-crash ?

Apart from the post-traumatic stress that can appear after such an incident it also triggers a lot of adrenaline, which is almost a self produced drug. Cronenberg cuts a subject which is still very much of a taboo, the "thrill seeking taboo". You got a lot of so called thrill seekers now these days, which can result into ghost riding on the freeway, climbing on buildings without security etc. All in all the thrill seek element isn't that original.

This is where Cronenberg has looked for a thrill that rushes into a perverse sexual outburst. After the shock of crashing into a car, the adrenaline, the rush of the experience becomes so real, you feel so alive that you need to let it all out, which comes into the act of "making love". Cronenberg is trying to paint the audience a picture of an event like this.

Based on J.G. Ballards novel "Crash" which was quiet deattached and cold, the director follows in style with the dark freeways of Canada, showing that even in your car you are not always save, and how a car can become the ultimate "drive" for pleasure. The problem with this film (like many others) is that it is so far out there that you either hate it or love it. The pacing is rather slow in the beginning and its hard to get into, if you don't understand the psycholgy that lies underneath the dialog. The movie has a solid script but the subject and material is not accessible for everybody. James Spader who often (he almost could be a stereotype) plays sexual frustated protagonists ("Sex,Lies,and Videotapes", "Secretary", "Speaking of Sex") delivers a terrific performance here. His distant and alienated acting fits perfectly into the dark en and sensual story, and doesn't come as a insincere or "over the top". Some people felt that Koteas and Hunter performances where a little flat, but they have just the balance between low key and an over the top performance (Koteas more than Hunter). You got to keep in mind that these people are already deranged from the beginning. What you see is simply a drop falling into bucket that is overflowing.

The use of light and shadow is very subtile and excellently done by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky. He really knows how to pull you into a certain world, that LOOKS like ours but feels very different. In any case I can recommend the movie if you want to watch something different. A lot of people will not understand the weight this film carries, and therefore this movie will be underrated, or simply will be put aside as boring or unrealistic. THIS IS A MISTAKE,... don't put it away, watch it, and feel the awkwardness. The result ?

"Humans really are quiet weird creatures..."

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15 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Freaky and worthwhile even if it sickens you, 13 April 2006

Author: doran-5 from United States

James Spader seems to prefer roles in which his sexuality is dark or deviant (e.g. Secretary, a fine film). He and the gorgeous Deborah Kay Unger are a couple, although not monogamous. Through certain accidents they stumble across a cell of car crash fetishists. More stuff happens: I shouldn't get into it. This movie would have been more disturbing if it didn't have such a sense of humor. There is a nasty scene in which Spader is about to rub his willie against a long puckered vagina-like scar on the luscious Roseanna Arquette's leg. She wears an outfit that is a combination of leather bondage gear and handicapped leg braces. A truly weird flick, with good sex scenes but not for a first date unless the girl likes SM and looks at copies of that full-color British magazine featuring motorcycle racing showing the racers proudly displaying their often horrid scars and injuries. Yikes. Well, if you liked Secretary, and if you liked Cronenberg's other flicks and his orifice obsession and general grotesqueness, you'll like this. It has a similar tone vis-a-vis humor as Secretary and some of Videodrome. The title credits are exemplary and some of the shots are marvelous. The scene wherein the camera lovingly rolls over Spader's leg brace after his accident is stunning. I am happy to say that there is no amputation in this flick at least. That would have been too much.

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64 out of 119 people found the following comment useful :-
On the road to hell..., 30 September 2004
Author: Merwyn Grote (majikstl@aol.com) from St. Louis, Missouri

There is the very real possibility that CRASH is an elaborate joke. That is the only way that this monumentally idiotic mess could possibly be explained. Certainly there is nothing in this silliness that in any way touches upon normal human behavior as most people understand it. Indeed, I even suspect you would have trouble finding any psychologist or psychiatrist who would have ever encountered the type of freaky weirdoes who populate this film -- or for that matter even have read about such freaky weirdoes in text books.

The film deals with people who get sexual aroused by automobile accidents and the pain and suffering such wrecks cause. I suppose anything is possible and such people may exist, but CRASH takes it one step further and suggests that there is this cult of individuals who somehow network to fulfill their fantasies of motorized mayhem. Two such characters are played by Holly Hunter and James Spader. In a most grotesque parody of "meeting cute" the two encounter each other when he crosses the center line and smashes head-on into her car, killing her husband and apparently getting her hot and bothered in the process. Hunter's Helen is already into smashup sex, so, after a stay in the hospital, the grieving widow naturally rushes Spader -- playing James Ballard, the author of the original novel -- into her small band of bumper car aficionados.

In addition to being wreck 'n' roll fanatics, the people must also be incredibly rich. They like to recreate infamous celebrity auto accidents, such as James Dean's roadside death. For instance, to do so, they have to buy or recreate not only a replica of Dean's rare 1955 Porsche Spyder, but also an almost equally rare 1950 Ford coupe that was the other car involved in the crash. With these and a variety of other new and used cars, we're talking about thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars for autos destined to be demolished in the name of foreplay. Talk about expensive quickies. A couple of tickets to a demolition derby would be far more economical -- and a virtual orgy.

Of course, the film isn't really about auto eroticism; it is about sexual obsession in general. The fetish in question could have been about anything that inspires abnormal lust. The characters could have been turned on by, say, internet porn, gambling, bungee jumping, farm animals or jiggling Jell-O molds. But, gosh darn it, car wrecks are so much more photogenic. It doesn't seem to bother the filmmakers that they are perpetuating a correlation between sex and violence, because, well, they apparently believe such a link already exists. Nor do they seem to be aware that they are undermining their own efforts by building an oh-so serious drama around a ludicrously grim (and lame) joke.

As such, the insipidness of the story is accentuated by the pomposity of the storytelling. Director David Cronenberg approaches the story as though he were Igmar Bergman directing PERSONA. Other than a few lapses, the film is cold and lifeless and empty; though it is somewhat appropriate that a film celebrating a sexual obsession with automobiles would depict sex as an utterly mechanical act. Cronenberg and crew do slip up a couple of times and inspire moments worthy of laughing out loud. One scene in particular is hilarious: Hunter and several others are lounging around watching videos of auto crash tests like they are watching porn videos; One particularly messy smash up prompts Hunter to excitedly demand that it be shown again in slow motion. Crash dummies watching crash dummies, as it were.

There is an unwritten rule of movie sex: If films featuring explicit sex are fun and comic, then it is pornographic; but if the sex is joyless, degrading and dispassionate, then it is art -- or, sex as something good is dirty; sex as something bad is honest. It is this simplistic, neo-puritanical attitude that makes films like CRASH so insultingly hypocritical: Make a big deal about filming graphic, lurid sex scenes, then condescendingly shake one's finger at the audience to remind them how perverse such activity is. It's like slipping an alcoholic a drink in order to self-righteously chastise him for being a drunk.

Had the filmmakers shucked the smug moralizing and openly played the material as sly satire, perhaps CRASH could have been a sharp commentary on modern romance, both between people and with their cars -- speeding as flirtation, road rage as rape, reckless driving as masturbation, the head-on collision as the one night stand; marriage as the aftermath of roadside carnage. But I don't think the film has the courage or the intellect to explore such themes. The film plays it safe, giving us a tale of obsession where the obsession is devoid of the thrill, the energy or the naughtiness of actually giving in to an impulse. It's an addiction without a high, but worse no expectation of there being a high. Here is a film that wants us to identify with a psychological quirk that is, to say the least, ridiculous, but it doesn't even make the effort to frame the quirk in a realistic fashion. How are we to care one way or the other -- emotionally, dramatically, socially or even clinically -- about people the film itself seems to regard as emotionally dead freaks?

CRASH thinks it is speeding recklessly down uncharted roads, but it is up on blocks, spinning its wheels and destined for the junkyard.

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