"Crash" is the only Best Picture nominee of 2005 that I've seen so far, and I have to say, if that was the best movie that was made last year, it must've been a pretty awful year for the film industry.

Okay, that's not exactly fair, since Best Picture nominees obviously aren't the only good movies that are put out every year, and the Academy sometimes screws up by leaving out superior films from the list of nominees. I mean, I'll be damned if "Crash" and "Capote" were better representations of film and Hollywood magic than "Wedding Crashers" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," two of the most gripping stories told in 2005, and two films that tragically garnered a combined zero Oscar nominations.

But fine. If "Crash" was a better movie than the other four Best Picture nominees, I might as well take those movies off my DVD queue. For the sake of the other films I eventually want to see at home, I hope this just was a case of the Academy rewarding the writers of "Crash" for taking the risk of doing a film on racism -- how edgy! -- nevermind whether the film dealt with the issue well or whether the film was actually better made than the other nominees.

Sure, Paul Haggis deals with racism in "Crash" -- and that's admirable -- but well, the word "sloppy" comes to mind. So do "unrefined" and "incomplete."

For those of you who haven't seen "Crash" yet, I'll take a few minutes to give you a synopsis.

In short:

EVERYBODY is racist.

Mexicans hate Asians.

Black people hate white people.

White people hate Mexicans.

Middle Eastern people hate white people.

Black people hate Asians.

Asians hate black people.

Everybody hates everybody everywhere, all the time.

And racism is bad.

The end.

If you were worried about spoilers, I apologize. Should have alerted you beforehand that there was no need for concern, since, I assure you, everything you need to know about "Crash" is laid out for you within the first minute of the film. It's the same scene over and over again for the entire movie -- one race stereotyping and attacking another race. And it's not just that. It's the most unrealistic string of interactions you'll ever see between different groups of people. There's absolutely no subtlety or variety in the film's dialogue, just an unrelenting assault of hate from one race to another, pretty much in 90 percent of the script.

I don't know about you, but there's so much more to the topic than this.

I understand that racism exists in Los Angeles, and it's sometimes extreme and blatant, but hey, how about the millions of people in the city who get along with members of different races? Don't they exist? The movie completely disregards this possibility for the sake of hammering out its point, whatever that point was, and the result is an incomplete, distorted depiction of race relations. I'm not sure what sort of microcosm Haggis was trying to create, but the one in "Crash" is one-dimensional and unrealistic. For one thing, racism isn't only exhibited in loud outbursts. A lot of it is suppressed, leading to an ignorance of differences and an unwillingness to confront fears. That's something the movie totally neglected.

What weakens "Crash" is that it doesn't go anywhere most people haven't already been. Most of us already know the basics of racism and the majority of racial stereotypes, and quite honestly, that's about the extent of the movie. It's a glorified book of racial jokes, or rather, it's "Totally Tasteless Jokes" brought to film, except it adds the resulting pain racism causes people, which I suppose is what makes it pass as art.

Admittedly, some of the pain that's portrayed in "Crash" is effective -- good acting will give you that result, no matter how poor the script -- but I didn't need to see another movie to know that racism is bad. It would have been nice for Haggis to contribute something new to the discussion.

This was my main gripe with the movie. It doesn't deal with racism by delving into it or by posing questions or suggesting resolutions, but rather, by simply presenting to the audience different manifestations of racism. Here's a black man robbing a rich white couple. Here's a white woman being afraid of a Mexican man. Here's a Mexican woman making fun of an Asian woman's driving ability. Here's a white cop harassing a black couple. That's it. For two hours, that's it.

Making a two-hour film about racism that does nothing but have different races be racist toward each other might be jarring for the simple fact that racism is always jarring, no matter the forum, but it isn't creative nor is it particularly enlightening. It's actually pretty manipulative -- taking an inflammatory subject such as racism, piecing it together in an inelegant manner, and then exploiting the audience's emotions through film.

To be fair, there are some nice scenes in "Crash" and most of the roles are well-acted, especially Terrence Howard's. It wasn't a bad movie. I just didn't think it was as ground-breaking as most critics made it out to be, or as moving. For every nice scene in "Crash," there were two that made me slap myself over the head in disbelief. Scenes like Sandra Bullock's character, a woman who has expressed her fear and hatred of Mexicans throughout the film, having an epiphany in the end and telling her Mexican maid, "I just realized that you're my best friend." Scenes like Larenz Tate's character getting into a heated argument with Ryan Philippe's character, then reaching into his pocket to pull something out. The audience is led to believe Tate is pulling out a gun, Philippe's character panics, and shoots him -- what was in Tate's pocket wasn't a gun, however, but a figurine. Gasp. (Talk about your Hollywood cliches.) Scenes like a black hospital worker telling Matt Dillon's character that his father won't be covered by insurance, prompting Matt Dillon to blurt out, "I can't look at you without thinking about the five or six more qualified white men who didn't get your job." Yes, this sort of mentality exists in men, but this is what I mean when I say the movie was written inelegantly. People don't talk like this, and even if they do, not everyone does, as "Crash" would lead you to believe. Remember, this sort of thing goes on for the ENTIRE movie.

And then there's the coincidences. Look, I'm willing to believe the coincidences in "Crash" just as I'm willing to believe the bus in "Speed" could make that jump on the freeway or that James Bond could escape all of those death contraptions in the 007 series. Filmmakers have to cut corners sometimes in order to provide their audience with cheap thrills or improbable outcomes. But this isn't "Speed" or James Bond or some other goofy movie with goofy stunts that we should be willing to let slide. I'd prefer to hold Best Picture nominees, and winners, to a higher standard.

As most of you know, racism isn't an easy subject to discuss, and none of us has totally figured it out. "Crash" proves this. I guess I was hoping for something new or for the film to shed a different light on the topic. My impression of the film was that it was more interested in manipulating our emotions than it was in providing us with an intelligent discussion with new insights.