Vitally important and disturbing film!!

Rating: 9/10 (4 September 2005)

Crash is not the most entertaining piece of work I've seen. It's not a great theater film or a have a good time kinda film or the kind of film that you'd rant about how "cool" it was. BUT Crash is one of the most important and disturbing pieces of film making I have ever seen. It's almost of a documentary quality but with an incredible cast of Hollywood stars that do such an incredible job at portraying everything the way it was meant to be. Crash is, at the core, all about racism, stereotypes, the human condition and redemption. It's an art film there is no doubt about it but with a clear and concise and often scary message.
The plot is very multi-storied. You have several different stories, occasionally overlapping about different people in different circumstances of different races. They all have different reasons for the feelings that they share about life and about these other races. White, Black, Chinese, East Indian, Mexican, many different races are presented in the film and I don't believe (despite what anyone says on here) that any one race is presented in any different of a light. I believe Paul Haggis who directed and wrote the film did an amazing job of portraying all these people and races in the same sort of distinction which is a seemingly impossible job. He walks such an incredibly thin line that could have turned this film into an insult to so many but he perfects it!! Let's talk about this cast...a run down of the stars...Don Cheadle, Jennifer Esposito, Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillippe, Ludicrous, Shaun Toub, Loretta Devine, Tony Danza, Bahar Soomekh and so many more. The brilliant thing about this cast is that they reflect what the film is about. This is a racial mix of Hollywood stars. They all represent a different portion of humanity. To talk about any one of their performances would be pointless. They all share nearly the same amount of screen time as there is so much going on in the film. They all do an incredible job.
Watching their stories is just as interesting as real life and just as scary. They all have their reasons for their particular bigotry and for some of them they find redemption and for others they never do. Crash was not made for entertainment but for a message, a sad, harsh, well meant message about humanity and racial equality and living together. And how sad and lonely we all are to the point where we would crash into another human being just have contact. Check this one out for something different and important in film making!!