Strong, but not overbearing look at the racial tinderbox that is L.A.

Rating: 7/10 (30 August 2005)

Crash follows a recent pattern of movies that combine various strands of stories across the social stratus combined by an incident or some loose strand, in this case some car crashes. Each section of L.A.'s vast community is examined from the rich politician and his wife, the Iranian shopkeeper, the Latin family trying to escape labelling of being gangster and down to the oriental white van man.
Interesting as it is, the stories aren't overbearing but as ever due to the many strands in the film they never seem to be able to fully examine the stories enough. Nevertheless, the general stories take twists and turns to keep your interest going and in this very difficult time of increased racial awareness it is a very relevant movie which is worth viewing. Likely will be positively noted in the Oscars, although i don't think that it is as good as that, but Matt Dillon will likely be given a positive nod for his portrayal of a bitter policeman for whom to there is more than meets the eye.
Good intelligent cinema in a year of daft US nonsense, but nothing incredible although worth a visit to the cinema for.