Nashville for the 00s

Rating: 7/10 (5 May 2005)

The comparison to Robert Altman is deliberate, and fans of Altman will find a lot to like here. Los Angeles is the canvas and we get to see it in cross-section: by race, class, gender, ethnicity, income. There is a lot of coincidence at work here to weave these diverse strands together, but in surprising ways. As they intertwine, we learn a lot about each individual strand: those we dislike at first are humanized, those we give easy sympathy to are frequently shown in a harsher light.
The acting is uniformly excellent. Surprises include a loud-mouthed Ludicrous (Chris Bridges, Matt Dillon who has never been this good before, and Michael Pena in an understated role as a father trying to reassure his child. The always excellent Don Cheadle gives the movie its center, though he get no more screen time than the other main characters.
There is humor here, too, the hard-edged, sometimes mean-spirited jokes you tell when you're not being PC. But that's honest. With that honesty, CRASH feels like the first genuine conversation about the American landscape in decades. I laughed, I cried, I left the theater feeling the possibility of renewal.