Paul Haggis' "Crash" is a great movie. Enough said.

Rating: 8/10 (4 August 2010)

Recently I've been going back and re-watching several of the last few Best Picture winners. I know that this film winning was a slight controversy as Brokeback Mountain was expected to win. Munich, other Best Picture nominee, was also a great movie. But I think that Crash deserved the award. Crash has a great storyline and amazing acting.
Crash tells the story of whites, blacks, Latinos, Iranians and Koreans all living in Los Angeles. The interviewing of the separate stories is done very well. There is a black detective (Don Cheadle), a film director (Terrence Howard), a racist housewife (Sandra Bullock), a racist cop (Matt Dillon), a young policeman (Ryan Phillipe), a black woman (Thandie Newton), a shop owner (Shaun Toub), a locksmith (Michael Pena) and a car thief (Ludacris).
All of these stories fit together brilliantly thanks to the director and writer Paul Haggis (In the Valley of Elah, Million Dollar Baby). The locksmith is working for both Bullock and Toub. Howard's girlfriend Newton is molested by Dillon. Phillipe worked with Dillon. It sounds complicated, but it all falls into place as the movie unfolds, it is clear who is who and what their life is like.
Paul Haggis, who is a brilliant scriptwriter, once again hits a home run script. As a director he is also amazing, the film is done with the perfect approach. A lot of the credit goes to the amazingly talented actors and actresses. From many of the actors, such as Matt Dillon, Michael Pena and Thandie Newton, this is their best performance yet. Each actor fits into the role of their character and lives out their problems and how they deal with them on screen. Crash is simply brilliant. I know I tend to review movies positively, but Crash deserves every bit of praise I have given it. Films like Crash are why there are still good actors and good movies. As much as I love big budget action movies, films like Crash will always be first pick in my book.