Missing the Point of Babel

I like this movie.  Sure it's one of those character study/nothing really happens movies, but I love the characters and dialogue, and the only thing really keeping it from winning the Oscar that year was Martin Scorsese's lifetime achievement award, er … film The Departed.  Yes, The Departed was about a million times more fun than this one, but it wasn't even close if you measure the two by amount of soul they have.  The problem with Babel for me was that I didn't really get the point. 

Was it a two hour long advertisement for gun control?  Um, no it wasn't.

Was it simply just a story or the lives people who were all affected by a random gun shot?  Probably.    

Or how about, in a way similar to Crash, it's just an account of how different cultures handle different situations?  For instance, those poor American kids have to go to Mexico, and when they get there, they see the dude cut the head off the chicken.  If I saw that as a child, I'd probably not eat chicken ever again, or maybe only eat chicken.  Either way, it would've messed me up. 

It almost seems like the point of this movie was to never trust a Mexican woman who's taking care of your children while you're on vacation in which your wife catches a stray bullet in the middle of nowhere.  Not that I'd ever be in that situation, but damn, talk about one poor decision leading to much worse decisions, it was like a runaway train of bad idea's leading to those kids nearly getting lost in the desert. 

Another missed point I got from this movie was never travel by bus if you're visiting a third world country.  I probably wouldn't have done that anyway, but now I know.  Let's be real here though, Zach Taylor doesn't visit third world countries, they visit him.  OH!.  I'm first world baby … and quite obnoxious on a Monday morning apparently. 

Lastly, the mute chick almost made my Sirens in cinema list: http://thedailydeuce.blogspot.com/2011/03/those-sirens-will-get-your-every-time.html, but I left her out because, well, she had problems.  She also had a knack of giving people the bird that was quite impressive.  This led me to wonder, does someone who is mute enjoy anything more than flipping people off?  It's got to be better than hitchhiking, representing peace, pointing at something, playing rock-scissor-paper or waving I imagine, but the one thing that's probably better for a mute person is putting two fingers across the side of your mouth and calling someone a vagina.  I doubt anything tops that.