The Crash

While writer-director-editor Aram Rappaport draws effectively weighted performances (especially from the always committed Driver) and maintains a crisp pace, he’s less adept at balancing those big picture thriller elements with Clifton’s personal journey, which ultimately serves to rob both aspects of greater potency.

The film may be too preposterous to take seriously, but at least writer-director Aram Rappaport trains his sights on the right enemies.

These are all cartoon figures out of Frank Capra’s most feverish populist nightmares.

The Crash fumbles between bad diatribe and bad domestic drama, complete with subplots about absent parents and childhood cancer.

Several respectable actors offer dicey performances here, but Rappaport's screenplay is the real villain, expecting thin references to real-world financial peril to paper over gaping holes in credibility and plain-old drama.

Of the many disheartening things about The Crash — a script filled with platitudes, casting an able-bodied actor as a wheelchair-bound tech expert, near-criminal underuse of Maggie Q — the worst is its habit of slapping the audience over the head with symbolism.

Watching a bad movie can be fun for reasons that have less to do with its essence than with its trappings. I enjoyed some of the characters’ cardboard and/or plastic names.