Man Against Man, Headed for a Collision Course

Rating: 10/10 (12 April 2006)

Film as media capturing a snapshot of a given moment in society: this is what Paul Haggis' film CRASH (not to be confused with David Cronenberg's much different film of the same name as it is not a remake) is all about.
How many times have you gone through your everyday activities when suddenly something happens -- a car hits yours, you get mugged, you experience condescension from someone, you have a bad day which only gets worse as the day moves on, or you see even more terrorism occurring through the mirror of television and immediately start eyeballing people of a specific race because they "look" like terrorists? I know I have, and have on more than one occasion caught myself holding my mouth before I spoke the damning words because it so happens, when seeing Jennifer Esposito's character Ria, I was reminded of my own Latino ethnicity. Her partner, Graham (played by Don Cheadle) calls her Mexican; she immediately corrects him that she is not, she is El Salvadorean and Puerto Rican. And there is a big difference. It's a little moment, but one that escalates in magnitude when dealing with people on a daily basis.
Such is the story -- and series of stories -- caught in the middle of CRASH. In a city like Los Angeles -- much like in another big city -- there are people from everywhere trying to make life a little better for themselves and their loved ones. Of course, every major city has slums and bad neighborhoods and sometimes things get out of control. Authorities, in trying to maintain order, don't always employ the people they should, and then again, one loose cannon will, in his or her hatred for people who come from a different background as they -- most notably black and/or Hispanic -- step over the lines of appropriate law enforcement while a real crime occurs not blocks away from them. This is what happens to Officer Ryan (Matt Dillon), a cop who's been on the business for nearly almost his life and has gone jaded. While the film presents him as the quintessential bad cop, subtle shades of his misplaced anger come through later on. It's again, something that has happened to all of us no matter how politically correct we would like to consider ourselves. In all of us there is the potential to lash out at that one person who has nothing to do with us, who was just there, who was an easy target.
The people whom he lashes out to are the Thayers (Thandie Newton and Terrence Howard), a young black couple who live on Ventura Blvd. In response to the report of a stolen SUV belonging to Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock's characters, stolen by Anthony and Peter (Chris Bridges and Larenz Tate) who also have more up their sleeve than their characters suggest), Ryan and his partner Tom Hanson (Ryan Philippe) tail the vehicle even though it's the wrong one. What sparks the incident is seeing Christine Thayer (a light-skinned black woman) come up from what seems to be a compromising position. Ignoring their story -- that they were coming back from a party and that he is a television director -- her haughtiness prompts Ryan to touch her inappropriately while Cameron Thayer looks on, unable to do anything. Hanson reports the incident, but his boss, who interestingly happens to be black (Keith David) gives him little reassurance because Ryan is a model officer and he's not about to jeopardize his own career.
More incidents of misplaced anger or preconceptions occur. David (Michael Pena), a locksmith, gets the short end of the stick when installing locks not only by the upper class (Bullock), but by a Persian immigrant. Cameron Thayer continues to get ill-treated by life as a television producer (Tony Danza) tells him that a black character "doesn't sound black enough" but then again -- Thayer doesn't, either. Bullock berates her Latina maid, and Dillon has another showdown with another black woman (Loretta Devine) because his father is ill and they've already started on the wrong foot when addressing each other. Anthony and Peter run over a Chinese man standing outside his van and throw him at a hospital's door. Later on, Anthony steals the Chinese man's van and finds something surprising in there. It's only when a moment of catharsis occurs that the character's internal crises hit a head, some with good results, some with bad results. Christine, increasingly disillusioned by Cameron, sees her marriage begin to fall apart and drives right into an accident only to have her life changed when Ryan steps in and saves her from certain death. Cameron on the other hand, gets in even worse with the cops when Anthony and Peter steal his vehicle and won't leave. Hanson lets him go, but the wound is there. He's just another black man in a town that sees him as a hood and not a professional.
CRASH doesn't try to settle matters too neatly, though. Even when some story lines end in a better place than they were when the movie begins, some others end in tragedy, but the slice of life look of the movie in which events take place within a two-day time frame demands a realistic approach. We eventually come to realize that many of the less sympathetic characters in CRASH act the way they do because they are either impotent to help their loved ones or because they've allowed the superficialness of life and their own prejudices to take over their outlook. Even so, like David's young daughter who puts herself in harm's way over a misunderstanding between her daddy and his Persian client, CRASH takes a hopeful approach. We as a society are in trouble, but we also have the power and the hope to make them change. It's not a sentimental approach: these things happen every day in the news, the little miracles of life.