Movie about racial tensions

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 2010)

My movie for this week was the movie "Crash", and it is a movie based on the social prejudices and stereotypes of today's society. The racial tension that this movie brings to light is not only sad, but at the same time, honestly portrayed because these very scenarios in this movie are everyday real life situations quite frankly. A few of the major characters are Rick and Jean Cabot, which are played by Brenden Fraser and Sandra Bullock. They are walking down the street about to get into their car when they are robbed at gunpoint by two black guys, and this act only confirms Jean Cabot's suspicions about young blacks in that neighborhood must be looking for trouble. Other characters were Cameron Thayer and his wife Christine Thayer, played by Terrance Howard and Thandie Newton respectively. Here's another type of racial profiling because Cameron was a well off movie director with money, and he and his wife are harassed by two white L.A.P.D officers just because they were black. Matt Dillion played one of the racist cops, and he was sort of dealing with his own prejudices against the system so to speak because of the lack of help he felt was not there to assist him with his ailing father. Chris "Ludacris" Bridges plays the role of Anthony, and his excuse for everything that's wrong in a black man's life is directly the fault of the white-man. Instead of doing away with all his excuses and taking responsibility for his actions, he'd rather steal cars from white people and continue thinking the way he does. The lighting is appropriate in this movie, especially on the scene when the Persian father was about to shoot the Mexican locksmith, and his daughter ran out in front of the gun shots. The scene went into slow motion and the lighting got hazy, emphasizing the magnitude of that moment. The camera angle was an important factor in the scene where Christine Thayer's vehicle had flipped, and she was stuck inside. The trail of gasoline from her car to other car was vividly shown by the angle of the camera, and it further added to the urgency for police to free her from the car and almost certain death.
The movie "Crash" forces viewers to acknowledge more than just the typical black and white problems of racism. But this movie opens it up to the rich verses the poor issues of racism, the post-911 issues of racism that mostly all Middle Eastern people had to deal with probably, and the issues of racism within one's own race about how one should conduct themselves given certain dramatic situations.