Crash-course in race relationships...

Rating: 10/10 (27 June 2005)

If anyone has seen and loved 'Magnolia', with the stellar cast and fast paced interlinking of seemingly opposite characters, then this is a film that you can't afford to miss.
The plot revolves around characters from different ethnic backgrounds and deals with the stereotypes that surrounds the social cliques. It ranges from in your face racism to a Persian(not Arabic...) family by a redneck shopkeeper, to prejudice against Afro-Americans on afro-Americans, white on white, and Muslim on Latino. In a nutshell, it tries to cram as much as it can into one bundle of perfection. The story lines of each characters aren't massive, and they are all meant to cover 24hrs time wise, which means that the pace of the film never lets up.
The cast is one of the master strokes of the film. With such prolifically awesome actors, namely Don Cheadle and Ryan Phillipe you get an unsurprising yet great display. Then you throw in Matt Dillon, who is less well known for great films, Sandra Bullock of unsubtle action fame, Brendon Fraser of off-beat actiondom, all of whom excel in Crash in the light of ACTUAL acting. It makes the film just seem that much better.
I haven't said much about the plot, but thats because really it isn't the most important aspect. What IS the important reason you must see this film, is that it deals with issues so many films ignore. And especially, in post-9/11 America, where the president seems hell bent on trying to create larger problems for relations, it is important that people see th e consequences racism has.