Emotional, moving, insightful and beautiful

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2014)

What Paul Haggis has achieved with Crash is nothing short of remarkable. The brilliant script and expert direction ties together dozens of seemingly separate characters as they live 36 hours of their lives. One character might happen to be the nurse for another set of characters, and whilst nothing comes of their interaction, it shows us how easily we can be touched by the lives of strangers.
Each character, despite having to share Crash's short run time quite sparsely, is deep, well- developed and the viewers never lose sight of their motivations. Racism is shown not to be a purely vile trait, but motivated by ignorance and our interactions with others. A Persian family are called Arabs, Koreans are called Chinese. African-American Graham Waters tells his mother he's in bed with a white woman, who is in reality Latino. Not only does Crash strip back the violence and hate, but also the small misunderstandings that we have in our own lives.
There are some poor lines that ignorant viewers might think of as Haggis' poor attempt at demonstrating negative behaviour. However, a deeper understanding will show why the characters are acting in this way. William Fichtner's Flanagan swears off black people for failing to be an upstanding members of the community who he could set up as a hero. His line "f*cking black people" may shock audience members, but a deeper understanding will prove otherwise.
The acting is very good, especially by some standout performances from Sandra Bullock as a fearfully racist housewife whose xenophobia is reinforced when she is carjacked in her first scene; Terrence Howard as a successful TV director who is forced to direct his black lead into a more stereotypical fashion and gets sick of being pushed around and Thandie Newton in an Oscar-worthy performance as Howard's wife, a black woman mistaken for white and then intimidated by the police for talking back. Michael Pena steals the film in one of the most heartbreaking and emotional scenes I have ever seen.
Paul Haggis' direction is superb, his screenplay is sublime and the editing is so superb that eight interwoven story lines fits into a 2 hour film seamlessly and without leaving any character underdeveloped.
For opponents of Crash, try to put the controversy of the 2005 Oscars out of your head and watch it with an open mind. You might just be surprised.