Took me completely by surprise.

Rating: Null/10 (28 October 2005)

When I saw Sandra bullock was in a movie I figured it would be something pretty light weight like Hope Floats. But Sandra Bullock has a relatively small part in this interwoven and complex character study, Crash. The movie, which has a number of very big stars and familiar character actors come together brilliantly to give us a showcase of the American identity, in race, and in our acceptance of others. So many stories come together to create a brilliantly subtle and awesome movie about who we are.
The plot is too complicated to go into in a forum like this, but there are a number of different small stories, such as the cop who is a bigot, and who is trying to get decent health care for his ailing pops. then there is the black TV producer who sees bigotry in more ways than one even in his wealthy lifestyle. So many other small stories but those are some of the plot lines of note.
The characters are quite incredible, and are generally much more real and substantive than a lot of characters in Hollywood films, but here the characters seem so real, they seem so multi-dimensional, the good guys turn out sometimes to be bad guys, and the bad guys turn out to be good guys. A lot of times in this movies characters no matter if they are good or bad turn out to be completely unexpected.
There have been so many movies that have examined their perspective times and mores many years ago, some movies were so good at showing who we were as a society, and examining ourselves. there really hasn't been a movie in recent years that has examined our generation in such a way. As we speak society is becoming more isolated and distant, even from our own neighbor. In this culture of distance and isolation Crash comes up and examines the culture, and is set in a city that might be the epitome of modern day isolation, distance, and decadence: Los Angeles.
The movie also examines the increasing multi-cultural society that is becoming America and how everybody, rich, poor, powerful, working-class, fits into it. Kudos to all of these actors who make this really good script come to life in such a way. I am sad that there are so few movies like this. There was a time movies like this could not have been made, with this kind of intensity, with this kind of social commentary, there should be a lot more movies like this. A lot of movies, even independent movies do talk about social situations like this, but the characters sometimes seem fake, and the story lines contrived. But this movie has rich people, poor people, every kind of person from every kind of background you can think of, nobody in vogue, not too many people that are extremely popular, the movie is just real, one of the most real I have seen in recent memory, this movie is a must see, and hopefully an Oscar Contender.