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Crash

Directed by Paul Haggis
Written by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco
Rated R
Starring Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Keith David, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner, Brendan Fraser, Terrence Howard, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillippe, and Larenz Tate

Ask someone who's seen Crash what it's about, and I guarantee you they'll sum it up by saying "racism". Here's a movie where everyone, and in this cast that includes blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, Persians, and pretty much every race out there, makes their assumptions on others based on race. The movie is quite plainly telling us that we're all racist, and that we're all going to destroy each other. Well, it's a little more hopeful than that, but still.

Crash basically tells about five or six different stories of people intersecting each other's lives in the run-down sections of L.A. There's no one protagonist, but many of the roles are played by recognizable faces. Don Cheadle, one of the most consistently-good actors working today, plays a detective worried about his younger brother, whom he knows is in trouble with the law. Sandra Bullock plays a pampered wife to Brendan Fraser's district attorney, and rising star of the moment Terrence Howard plays a television director who's wife is the target of a racist cop played by Matt Dillon, in a profoundly hard-to-watch scene.

Consider a scene where a Middle Eastern man needs locks replaced on the doors of his shop, but sends the Hispanic locksmith away because he thinks he's trying to scam him. Or the scene where two young, well-dressed black men talk about how people unfairly discriminate toward them, and then steal a rich couple's car at gunpoint.

Some reviews of the film criticized it as being open-closed about its moral code, which acts almost as equations. As the L.A. Times wrote, "the logarithm is fairly simple: Money plus power plus a pale complexion equals total inhumanity…Power plus pallor minus money fares slightly better…Pallor minus power minus money plus small-town idealism…gets a kick in the head." The N.Y. Times called it "manipulative". A strange word, manipulative, strange when reviewing movies, at least: aren't movies designed to manipulate your emotions? I think Ebert, in this case at least, got it right when he said it's a movie of parables. Everything adds up into one disturbing, but most importantly thought-provoking, film.

Dillon, for example, as the racist cop, later finds himself in a situation where he needs to save the life of the television director's wife, played by Thandie Newton. The terror on her face as she realizes it's him is palatable. And yet before this we see Dillon caring for his sick father. He is probably the most well-drawn, three-dimensional portrait of racism I've ever seen in a movie, and is the standout of the cast.

Then there's Ryan Phillippe, Dillon's partner, who is idealistic and alarmed at the outward racism of Dillon, until he realizes he might be just as bad, deep down. Then there's…well, like I said, there's plenty of interlocking stories. The best part is, there's really not a single weak link. They're all completely captivating, and they all hold scenes of uncommon power. Crash is the second straight success of writer Paul Haggis, who scored last year with Million Dollar Baby. Strange, then, that these two movies have such completely different tones. Million Dollar Baby has perfect form and structure, is open and shut, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Here in Crash, we get half-stories of a dozen interlocking people, and in them we can all see something of ourselves. It's one of the best films of the year.

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