Coincidences make the edgy film consistent and dramatic and enable Crash to cover the serious subject "Racism" from many facets and levels. It rates A.

Rating: 9/10 (15 August 2006)

The film "Crash" is more like an apocalypse. It might be subtitled as racists' redemption, more actually, human's redemption. Hapless and underestimated as the blacks might are, prejudice and racism exists in every culture, without mentioning in the USA, the melting pot of different cultures. In such a white-dominated society, any other races are vulnerable. According to the law of the jungle, these minorities must work twice harder than their white counterparts to get recognized.
Mistrust comes from misunderstanding, rooted prejudice from thinking in stereotype. Should we lay the blame on the whites for our embarrassing situation? A passage from John William, author of " Enough" throws a silver lining. "Who will tell you that if you want to get a job you have to stay in school and spend more money on education than on disposable consumer goods? who are willing to stand tall and say that any black man who wants to be a success has to speak proper English? Isn't that obvious? It would be a bonus if anyone dared to say to teenagers hungering for authentic black identity that dressing like a convict, whose pants are hanging off his ass because the jail prison guards took away his belt, is not the way to rise up and be a success." Anthony is very self-conscious about his role as a black thief. He complains that the blacks aren't well treated in cafes and even black waitresses are snobs. He harangues that the whites are oppressors and swears to rob the whites only. He takes a white woman's suspicious glances and wariness as the racism and an insult to him. His anger is obvious. Subconsciously, he tries to change, but goes to the other extreme by robbing, a way he thinks that can demonstrate the African-Americans are not the weak, only to end up in being devalued and embarrassing his own race. It's quite out of date to think oneself a victim and defend negative and dysfunctional behavior.
The race relationships are more labyrinthine than the L.A. streets. There are Koreans, Hispanics apart from Afro-Americans and the locals. They crash into each other. Those collisions are logical steps to an understanding of each other.
People in this film are multi dimensional. The L.A. cop Ryan is a good son. After being rejected by a supervisor of African origin to find a better doctor for his father, he takes it out on a black couple. He pulls over their SUV, humiliates the husband, Cameron, and sexually abuses the wife, Christine. He is a bigoted racist. When it comes to the car accident scene where the director decides to go soft before it gets too downbeat, he takes his life and saves Christine, trapped in an upside-down car. He is a nameless hero.
Coincidences make the edgy film consistent and dramatic and enable Crash to cover the serious subject "Racism" from many facets and levels. It rates A.