Crash Review
by dnb@dca.net (dnb AT dca DOT net)July 14th, 2005
CRASH (2004)
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2005 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
Cultures collide in "Crash," an ensemble piece set in Los Angeles and featuring, among others, Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, William Fitchner, Brendan Fraser, Nona Gaye, Terrence Dashon Howard, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillippe, Lorenz Tate, and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges.
It's a big cast and a (largely) competent one, with screenwriter Paul Haggis ("Million Dollar Baby") pulling them all together in this, his directing debut.
This multifaceted film introduces us to a variety of racially and ethnically diverse stereotypes many of whom are linked, and/or affected, by the car crash that opens the film, as we witness the events that led up to the accident, starting with the L.A.P.D. detective (Cheadle) leading the investigation (and sleeping with his Hispanic partner, played by Esposito, although he's not exactly sure of her ethnicity).
Then there's a white socialite (Bullock) and her District Attorney husband (Fraser) who have their Lincoln Navigator stolen at gunpoint by a pair of petty black crooks (Tate and Bridges). And the rookie cop (Phillippe) whose bigoted partner (Dillon) pulls over another black Navigator for a moving violation and humiliates/abuses its occupants, an affluent African-American television director (Howard) and his light- skinned wife (Newton). And an Iranian storeowner who seeks revenge on a Latino locksmith after his store is robbed.
These disparate storylines, each with its underlying tensions of racial disharmony and volatility, wax, wane, and intertwine, sometimes effectively, other times a little too interdependent on coincidence and the kinds of conclusions that people of every race jump to at one time or another.
"Crash" shuns political correctness with an enthusiasm rarely observed in modern cinema: its characters say exactly what they think and feel providing for an uncomfortable but uniquely edgy experience. What Haggis seems to be saying is that we're all prejudiced in some way or another no matter how broadminded we like to think we are and his film takes a look at the aftereffects of that ignorance, of all that bottled- up resentment and intolerance. Bullock's character Jean sums the incendiary situation up best when she says she wakes up angry every morning and doesn't know why. It's because L.A.'s racial boundaries are so clinically defined, so stringent that the city's rich melting pot of inhabitants rarely comes into physical contact with one another on its bustling, dangerous streets.
Ultimately the contrivances of Haggis's plot, with its deliberate designs to shock and expose the callous cruelty in all of us, hurt the film. But this "Crash" is still one worth slowing down for if only to take a curious peek.
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David N. Butterworth
dnb@dca.net
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
