Dramatic Television Film w/out commercials.. but effective

Rating: 8/10 (5 June 2005)

Crash is an intense dramatic series of extremely short slices of the negative side of LA lives that has the potential of being a masterpiece but instead lacks the balance of both extremes. It is a great directorial debut that lingers on being a 2 hour non stop TV drama w/out commercials that tries to cover so many characters that one wishes Paul would have tried to provide more depth to less characters to enhance the message that feels like a roller-coaster always flying down at 200 mph... but at the same time the edginess and superficiality of this effect truly captures the essence of what it feels like to Live in LA..which could have been another title for it. Perhaps it is due to his background in TV that yearns to provide non stop drama with no depth of character so we wont switch to another channel at the commercial but that is a shame since he covers such wonderful subjects of racism,love and having faith in a system that is so devoid of it these days.
But besides this small exception the film delivers stunning acting, quick sometimes too quick of a pace that is so full of dramatic events that one can predict them but with such an all star cast one allows for such exaggerated coincidences to enjoy the insightful message that he keeps pounding thru our heads until the roller-coaster ends with a reminder that indeed.. we can keep crashing or perhaps not.
nobody could give away just one spoiler in this movie to ruin it but it surely will be a movie to be talked about for a long time and hopefully more films will follow in his footsteps to make a change and show how we can thru films of this nature.
Great job and i highly recommend it... but it isn't a light fun film so be prepared I give it an 8 with potential of a 10 next time