The irony of it all

Rating: 10/10 (11 May 2005)

Going into this movie I was expecting a good cast performing with a decent storyline but what I got out of this film was so much more. It was a breathtaking emotional roller-coaster with one of the best scripts in a long time. This movie is about a car crash that links a group of strangers together. At first you do not understand what the link all the characters share but by the end you definitely do. The film is very much like Pulp Fiction in the way it jumps around from story to story with it all connecting in the end. While it is no Pulp Fiction it doesn't need to be it is special in it's own way.
Matt Dillon is superb as the sleazy dirt-bag cop with a good heart. You start out hating him in the beginning with his run in with a black couple but later on you learn to love him for his flaws. He is just an ordinary guy who gets a little confused along the way, he is slightly racist and violates as well as humiliates a black women but ends up saving her life after she gets in a car accident. His partner who is played by Ryan Phillippe who was outstanding as the innocent rookie cop, is very shaken up by this and asks to be reassigned. Phillippes character ends up saving the life of the husband of the woman Dillon violated, and that very evening takes the life of a black man thinking that he was pulling out a gun.
Don Cheadle was spectacular as a police detective who is estranged from his family. His mother is a junkie and his brother is the boy that Phillippe ends up killing. He finds his brother dead at a crime scene after being in an accident. When his mother goes in to see the body she blames him for the death of his brother because he wanted nothing to do with them.
Ludicrous turned in a great performance as the down on his luck black kid who thinks the world is against him because he is black. Brendan Fraser was also good in his brief performance as the D.A. of Los Angeles. Terrence Howard was very good as the television director who is being pushed around by everyone and does nothing because he does not want trouble. Michael Pena was great as the Hispanic father who just wants to live a normal life and not be branded as a gang banger.
This movie is all about the crime and hate in the city of L.A. and how it can consume anyone even the most innocent. It is also very ironic how one minute a person can seem like a good or bad person but turn around and be totally different from the label they have been branded with. All in all an excellent film with a cast picked perfectly for the parts.