one of a kind

Rating: 8/10 (24 March 2006)

The issue of racism is blended seamlessly into the story. The life of 7 couples (white policemen, black TV personnel, black car thieves, Persian shopowners, Latino locksmith, white District Attorney, black detectives and Mexican woman detective) are interwined. Not to disclose too much, the stories behind these people come alive on the screen. Here racism knows no ends - those suffering from racial discrimination on the other hand discriminate against people of another colour. Yet racism alone would not hold the movie together, relationship does and the director succeeds in bringing out love-hate relationship between husband and wife, brothers, bad cop and citizen, father/mother and son. In the movie, people are not just good or bad - grey areas abound. Trust, or rather distrust, lead to tragedy at worst or reconciliation at best.
The scene that impressed me most is when the biased Sandra Bullock hugged her domestic helper, finally realised her own vulnerability and called the helper her best friend.
This movie deserves the Oscar for Best movie. Curiously, when I watched the movie, never did I associate racism to any city in the U.S. nor ponder whether any part of the story can actually be real. Rather, I feel bias exists in human nature, in any parts of the world and to a varied extent. Very worth watching.