The critics prove the movies point

Rating: 8/10 (22 December 2005)

I absolutely loved this film, but I cannot believe the huge amount of criticism it's been receiving lately. When I look at the recent reviews here on IMDb a lot of the negative ones state that in this movies the dialogues are contrived, the events are unbelievable and even that the people are offensive in their racism.
Off course the dialogue is contrived, as well as that the situations have to be "out of the ordinary." It's the only way to provoke a reaction, thus in the end enabling the characters to redeem themselves. If Haggis would've sticked to realism and every day dialogue, how would he have been able to make a thought provoking movie about, not people being racists, but human nature and how it's influenced by our surroundings. Which brings me to the topic of racism. It's not a movie about racism IMO, racism is just a necessary emotional conduit to make it possible for such a wide variety of characters in a diverse place as L.A. to react to one another. The alternative would have been 2 or 3 people displaying a variety of emotions, he chose this way because it's such a powerful one and, although people here apparently disagree, still a really common one.
The funny thing is that by showing your criticism in the way that you are, by reacting emotionally to this movie, (almost every critic gave this movie 1 or 2 *s, which is preposterous,) you are in fact doing the exact same thing that the characters in the movie are doing, not acting logical and contriving things to make a point. I think the director has it spot on when it comes to character development and the human reaction
In my opinion this was a brilliant movie, though in the beginning the personal views were pretty forced, but I expect great things to come if Haggis keeps making films.