Powerful and emotional film providing insight to racism today.

Rating: 8/10 (3 February 2011)

Crash is directed by Paul Haggis. Crash has many large name actors/actresses such as Don Cheadle (Graham Walters), Matt Dillon (John Ryan), Sandra Bullock (Jean Cabot), Jennifer Esposito (Ria), Loretta Devine (Shaniqua Johnson), Ryan Phillipe (Tom Hansen), Larenz Tate (Peter Waters), Brendan Frasier (Rick Cabot), and Thandie Newton (Christine).
The entire film takes place in all of two days. Crash follows several people of different ethnicities. These characters include an African American director and his wife; a Middle East store owner and his daughter; two white police officers; an African American detective and his female Hispanic partner; a Latin locksmith and his young daughter; two African American teenage criminals; and a white district attorney and his wife. The film shows how these people experience racism and how they are also guilty of racism. All of these characters are connected by one "crash."
The district attorney and his wife experience a car-jacking (done by the two African American teens); then Jean is uncomfortable having a Latino locksmith change the locks in her home. The movie director and his wife get pulled over by two white cops; one of the white cops violates the wife and she gets angry at her husband for not standing up for her. The Latino locksmith is trying his best to raise his young daughter and provides her with a cloak to protect her from gunshots. This film shows raw racism. It is very real in that situations like these do occur on a daily basis even in today's society. Crash takes the viewer on an emotional roller-coaster. There are lots of negative attitudes depicted throughout the entire film. For example, Daniel (the Latino locksmith) changes the locks at the Middle Eastern man's store after it has been broken into. Daniel informs the store owner that he needs a new door but the owner refuses. He experiences another break-in and blames the locksmith. He goes to shoot Daniel and "hits" his daughter. It is then that the store owner discovers there were only blanks in the gun and thankfully the girl is okay.
Sound effects are important in this film. Silence is used in many of the crime and action scenes. Music also plays a vital role in giving the emotional effect. The variety of music played relates to the scene and conversations. Some music used includes: hip-hop, country, Middle East music, and Latin music.
Another film that exhibits racism is Gran Torino. However, in this film it shows one racist person (Walt). He is racist against everyone. Others in this film are accepting of Walt despite his racist ways.
Crash shows that everyone is different but yet we all have so much in common. It is tragic that racist situations still occur so frequently. This could easily be prevented if we all just look past our differences and see how alike we all really are.