Challenging, abrupt, brilliant

Rating: 9/10 (19 June 2005)

Last night we saw "Crash," a film written/directed by Paul Haggis that stars Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and a bunch of other household names. It's an intricate story of seven primary character plots woven together through a series of destructive and life-altering events (think: Robert Altman), set against the din of LA nightlife and sprawl (think: "Collateral"). Using the scene of a car accident from high above on an LA freeway, Haggis thrusts the film's crash metaphor on us from the get-go, and uses his subplots to make a powerful statement about 21st century racism.
Maybe the best thing about Crash isn't its social commentary, but instead the experience of absorbing it. Most movies I've seen about modern bigotry have made their case through purely black and white (think: absolute) characters - halos earnestly hovering about the victims and horns stubbornly fixed atop the perpetrators. And yes, it's usually the white guy conveyed as the brute.
Not the case in Haggis' LA. Each character in Crash exposes something dark about themselves and not one emerges the hero. There isn't really a true-to-form protagonist. Not Cheadle, the LAPD detective or his partner and girlfriend (Jennifer Esposito), not the defiled Thandie Newton or her husband (Terrance Dashon Howard, who delivered a spectacular performance as dressed up, conked, adherent sitcom director), not the feeble Bullock or the hypocritical Ludicrous, and certainly not Dillon. In fact, all are the bad guys along the way. And also the good guys.
And thus the experience of Crash: there are no free rides. Haggis pushes you around the whole time with the ebb and flow of goodness and badness emanating from each character. He destroys any chance of taking sides, and challenges the notion of "sides" to begin with. In doing so, he transmogrifies the shell of political correctness that usually governs films on the topic.
It's a masterpiece. Thicken your skin and go see it.