I'm not entirely buying into it, but...

Rating: 7/10 (3 October 2005)

Thirty minutes into 'Crash', I was slightly put off and irritated. And at the time Don Cheadle's character insulted his girlfriend/partner's culture, I was about ready to stop viewing. The film's premise seemed to me outdated, outlandish, and just a bit naïve.
But I stayed. And I stayed primarily by accepting this film not as an indictment of America, nor as a primer on race relations in California, but as a movie about jerks  plain and simple. White, black, yellow, and brown jerks (well, maybe not brown - I can't remember any egregiously bad behaviour from that group)  all of them flawed, and all of them human. And by staying, I was able to actually say I found the film entertaining to watch, with several well thought out points to make. Moreover, I thought all the actors were realistic, and the story never dragged.
While several of the vignettes are pretty coincidental (you might say contrived)  the Matt Dillon/Thandie Newton one in particular  by and large the randomness of the characters' relationships works well. Paul Haggis, the writer and director of the film, does an excellent job of keeping the dialogue realistic, and the scene setup logical. And the music not only complements each scene well, but is evocatively apropos as well.
While I don't find its overall argument (which I think is 'you have no idea who you are, but you are racist') truthful, the movie did make you think. Also, unlike most movies today, this film is not forgotten two hrs after you leave the theater (or return the DVD in this case).