Powerful, Hard Hitting Drama About Racial Stereotypes

Rating: Null/10 (3 June 2005)

In Paul Haggis's feature directorial debut, Crash, several different characters walk the streets of Los Angeles, their minds already made up of the different ethnicities that surround them. Because of these stereotypes, not one character is able to clearly see the people that stand before them. And it is in that universal characteristic that makes Crash such a wonderful film.
There is no better place to exhibit the loneliness, pain, and fear in America better than Los Angeles, which is a melting plot of different cultures within a twenty mile radius. Watching a film such as this questions your own views on how you see people of different races, as well as surprises you at how quick we are to judge someone who is not like ourselves. No on exhibits this finer than Sandra Bullock's character, Jean, who is only too quick to judge a Latino locksmith as a gang member. Jean is so blinded by these racial stereotypes that she makes, she does not even realize her actions till the end of the film, where she comes to realize her Latino housemaid knows her better than her supposed white friends.
The Latino locksmith, as it turns out, is the furthest thing from a gang member. He is a family man, with a wife and angelic little daughter to whom he tells a sweet story about an invisible and impenetrable cloak that renders her impervious to all harm. That little story comes back into play when a Persian immigrant, whose store was broken into and ransacked, tries to take vengeance on the locksmith by threatening him. What ensues is one of the most climatic and heart pounding scenes I have seen on film in quite some time.
Yet this is simply skimming the surface at the amount of character development and characters that are involved in this film. We have Don Cheadle as a detective who is having an affair with his Latino partner, Matt Dillon is a somewhat corrupt cop who performs an inappropriate search on a light skinned African American woman that comes back to haunt him. Ludicrous is a man who car jacks white people's cars and sells them to a car garage, all the while preaching about how white people give the "black man" a bad name when he is giving the "black man" a bad name himself. So much is packed into only 100 minutes that I only wish that these characters had more room to breathe with their intertwining stories.
There is amazing use of score throughout. A score that hauntingly fits that chaos and tragedy that fill this picture. THe music alone may very well bring you to tears, it is that moving and in perfect synchrony during a car crash scene where Matt Dillon rescues a woman trapped in her car. This is what thematic score is supposed to e: symbolic to the characters on screen.
Crash is a powerful and moving film that is not to be missed. Paul Haggis has debuted with a hard hitting drama that will hopefully be remembered come awards season in 2006. I can only wait to see what this remarkable screenwriter and director has in store next.
Highly Recommended