Hirplash

Last night I re-watched Crash, and my wife watched it for the first time. She’s a smart cookie, and was catching on to some events before they happened, and would ask me if this or that was going to happen. Before I met her, most the moms I knew had difficulty or flat out didn’t want to see, any movie in which a child was a victim. My wife isn’t any different, and we’ve had to turn off a movie or two in the past.

Of course the character she liked most was the hard working and doting father, Daniel (played by Michael Pena), and she instantly connected with him on a parent level in the scene where he gives his daughter her “impenetrable cloak.” She put the pieces together fairly quickly, and began asking me if the store owner was going to hurt or kill him. I didn’t want to give it away, but I knew she’d be pissed at me if he was killed and I let her watch. So I told her the truth, that he isn’t hurt. Soon the store owner was robbed and found Daniels name on a receipt, and my wife stirred in her seat. As the lunatic owner sat outside Daniels home, she asked if something happened to his daughter. I said that she wouldn’t be killed. It was true, and I knew she’d be upset by the scene in which we are lead to believe she’s shot, but I didn’t want to dilute the scene.

Then it happened, that powerful moment where Lara leaps into her father’s arms to protect him just as the gun goes off. She gasped, and I quickly told her that the girl was okay. But it was too late. It didn’t matter that for two seconds she thought the girl had been shot, those two seconds was all it took. I may get in trouble here, but my wife cried. Probably a mixture of emotions; horrified, sad, pissed at me, confused and top of the list, imaging she and the Kyd in that situation.

I’m fairly certain that not telling her what was the come was the “right” thing to do, but it didn’t make it the easy thing to do. Crash, in my opinion, is an important movie, and I didn’t want to lessen the impact because those two seconds stay with you. The silent scream we see from Daniel is completely audible in our heads.

Earlier in the evening, I was watching another Don Cheadle movie, Talk to Me. I saw it last summer, and it’s a solid B, maybe B+ movie. But I was distracted by the voices in my head. I had an idea for a cast that in part I really would like to see assembled, and part of me wondered why it hadn’t happened yet. I want to see a movie with Denzel, Cheadle, Terrance Howard, Jeffrey Wright, Thadie Newton, and Halle Berry. Just give us a great script with great characters for a talented cast. Race doesn’t need to be a theme, and lets just skip the bio-pic, which seems to be the only time the masses will accept a largely black cast. Give us The Departed or a Saving Private Ryan. Throw a ton of money behind it, and put a world class director in the chair. Don’t market it with a soundtrack of the most popular rappers of the day. Score it as you’d score any great movie. No token white guy roles, unless it’s the right actor for the part.

It could be a monumental movie, and not a monumental “black” movie, only when that adjective is removed from the description. And there’s absolutely no reason this cast shouldn’t be assembled.