Many different lives accidentally connecting

Rating: Null/10 (26 October 2010)

Film Review: Crash – 2004 Crash is a movie about people who live completely different lives and end up crossing paths with each other. Each person is guilty of racism in some type of way and they are all personally affected, changed, damaged, or victimized by this racism. Each character is made up of many layers which does not allow you to figure out exactly who that person is and how they will come out at the end of the film. The following are names of the major actors and actresses who make up this outstanding film cast:
Sandra Bullock as Jean Cabot
Matt Dillon as Officer John Ryan
Don Cheadle as Detective Graham Waters
Brendan Fraser as Rick Cabot
Terrance Howard as Cameron Thayer
Ludicrous as Anthony
Thandie Newton as Christine Thayer
Ryan Phillippe as Officer Tom Hansen
Larenz Tate as Peter Waters
Jennifer Esposito as Ria The theme of this movie is prejudice, racism, and stereotypes. It shows individuals, family members, business people, working people, and strangers saying the most hurtful and cruel things to one another. Every character in the movie has their own situation or irony facing a range of prejudice, such as, gender, class, and, race. In one scene of the movie, an Asian woman and Ria, a Latina detective, get into a car accident with one another and the Asian woman blames Ria for causing the accident and makes a comment about Mexicans not knowing how to drive. The Latina woman makes a comment back to the Asian woman about her being too short to see over the steering wheel and that she was the reason that the accident happened. This is one example of how stereotyping is used in the film. A scene that gives an example of racism would be when two black men, Anthony and Peter, are walking in the middle of downtown Los Angeles talking about white people getting better service than black people. Anthony commented on a black waitress only wanting to serve white people because she assumed that black people don't tip. Ironically, Anthony ended up not tipping the waitress because he said she gave him bad service. This film's theme is similar to the theme in American History X because both films give examples of racism, stereotypes, and prejudices. Each film shows the harsh reality of how ignorant people can be and how badly people can treat each other. Two techniques that worked really well with the theme of this film were the lighting and sound effects. Low-level lighting was used in the scenes where characters were plotting crimes and in scenes of sadness and misery. High-level lighting was used in the action scenes or rich people scenes. Sharpness, high gloss, contrasting colors, and shiny objects in the background are used for demonstrating situations where the characters are wealthy and their surroundings are supposed to look perfect. The sound effects for this film that were extremely appropriate were the noisy, city sounds of Los Angeles and the sound of silence. Each one gave a dramatic effect and made you feel as though you were involved in every storyline of the movie.