Crash is a great film; Shawshank great. Crash is about racism, pure and simple. Just about every single scene is either an example of it or has characters talking about it or both. It has a dozen main characters and many more supporting ones, covering seven main storylines which all interconnect in a 24 hour period. In spite of all these characters it's not hard to follow and yet it's also not predictible. The script is very tight, not a scene or a word is extraneous. This is melodrama, but in a good sense of the word, this film delivers stunning emotional wallops. Genuine suspence, disgust, surprise, relief, anguish, humor, and other emotions will come over you while watching Crash. You will walk out, overwhelmed and dying to discuss it with someone or everyone.
Crash introduces many characters and based on their actions and the bluntness of their dialog you quickly find out about them and then it pulls the rug out from under you and you start to realize you don't know what's going to happen next and you didn't know everything you thought you did. No one is purely good or evil and many are trapped by circumstances, but we're all responsible for our actions in each and every situation. People in this film crash into each other both automotively and verbally. There are many times in this film where poor communication forces a situation to spiral out of control. This happens with immigrants not speaking English, with people too upset to think about what they are saying and with people who don't say what they're thinking.
Due to the ensemble cast Crash begs comparisons to the films of Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson as well as Grand Canyon and Do the Right Thing. The acting is generally fantastic, particularly Don Cheadle (as usual), Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton. Sandra Bullock, Ryan Phillippe, Terrence Dashon Howard, Ludacris and Michael Pena all do wonderful jobs as well. Only Brendan Fraser seemed a little flat. Four parent-child relationships and two marriages are given a fair amount of screen time if not actually explored.
Some prominent reviewers gave Crash some not so glowing reviews, most of which complained that there was too much coincidence, too much structure in the story or that the characters weren't three dimensional. Those things might be true, but it's missing the point. This isn't a documentary and it's not a character study, it's a film to make you think about and feel the effects of racism. While the character situations are a bit contrived, they are composites and every viewer should be able to relate to at least one conversation or stereotype in this film, if not many more. Please go see this film in the theater so it generates good revenue and we get more films like this and less like The Longest Yard remake.
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