An Extraorindary Motion Picture Experience

Rating: 9/10 (20 April 2007)

CRASH was a breathtaking and undeniably powerful motion picture that moved some, angered others, and has probably caused more impassioned debate than any film of the last 10 years. This Oscar winner for Best Picture is an unsettling, imaginative, and quietly accurate examination at the very touchy subject of race relations and how, in some very subtle ways, we really haven't made much progress in this area since the 1960's. This film rattled cages everywhere because it shined a light on behaviors in this country that we want to believe don't exist but have really just been quietly shoved in the closet and almost out of sight. This film angered a lot of people because it's unflattering to us and shows a side of us that we would rather believe doesn't exist but I defy anyone who sees this extraordinary film not to find one character or event that they can relate to, have seen something similar occur, or know someone in their own lives who is like a character in this film. Many have criticized this film for conveying the ugliness of prejudice and bigotry with a sledgehammer but I disagree. Paul Haggis' superb Oscar winning screenplay weaves a tapestry of story and character that never punches you in the face. Instead it haunts your conscious with its powerfully quiet indictment of our own inner demons that we had forgotten about. This film traces 24 hours in the lives of several disparate characters in downtown Los Angeles where the separate events these people experience shed a different light on this still highly sensitive issue. The cast is uniformly superb...Don Cheadle plays a police detective whose investigation into a dirty cop's death finds him in a position of compromising an investigation through reverse discrimination while dealing with a drug-addicted mother, a hoodlum younger brother and a latino partner/girlfriend (Eva Mendes). Chris "Ludacris" Bridges does a star-making a turn as an intelligent LA thug who loves to blast white Los Angeles for the deplorable way they treat black people while carjacking a political candidate and his wife, played by Brendon Frasier and Sondra Bullock. Bullock is surprisingly effective in a very unsympathetic role. Terrence Howard is brilliant as black TV producer who is humiliated during a traffic stop involving a bigoted cop (Matt Dillon, Best Supporting Actor Nominee)going a little too far with his girlfriend (Thandie Newton)has him questioning his manhood and taking the law into his own hands when Bridges also tries to carjack him, not to mention a reconnection between Dillon and Newton that provides one of the film's most powerful moments. Mention should also be made of Ryan Phillippe as a sympathetic cop who finds out he's not as liberal as he thought and Larenz Tate as Bridges' running partner. And don't miss the "Magic Cloak" scene...one of the single most moving scenes in the history of cinema. It's not fun, it's not flattering, and it's not easy to watch, but CRASH is an important and beautifully crafted look at an armpit of our society which we would like to think no longer exists.