Doesn't Get Much Better Than This

Rating: 10/10 (23 September 2005)

A snooty lawyer and his angry wife are carjacked by two black men. A light skinned black director and his wife are mis-treated by a racist white cop after getting pulled over for a traffic violation. A Russian store owner who doesn't speak much English, gets broken into and blames a poor Latino locksmith for his trouble. A black cop is worried that his relationship with his Mexican female partner will upset his colleagues and mother, who he has an estranged relationship with. All these stories are intertwined to form an arc and all come together at the end to state a message about our society and how it deals with race.
In the tradition of Robert Altman's fine films like "The Player", and "Short Cuts", as well as Lawrence Kasdan's "Grand Canyon", "Crash" does a wonderful job at mixing and matching a number of characters and stories and having them all come together. This film has amazing writing and performances. The characters are all real and they seem like people you've probably met before. Director Paul Haggis, who just won an Oscar for "Million Dollar Baby" really does a great job at balancing everyone and giving each story equal screen time.
This is an intense film at times and each character's story packs some emotional punch. The writing is dynamite and I highly recommend "Crash" (****)