Movie #61 - Crash

Title: Crash

Director: Paul Haggis

Release Year: 2005

Plot Summary: A Brentwood housewife and her DA husband. A Persian store owner. Two police detectives who are also lovers. A black television director and his wife. A Mexican locksmith. Two car-jackers. A rookie cop. A middle-aged Korean couple…

They all live in Los Angeles. And in the next 36 hours, they will all collide…

Thoughts: I'd no idea what Crash was really about after seeing the trailer, so I'd no idea what I was getting into. Prejudice and racism are the major themes - how stupid they are, how harmful they are, but also how we can learn to rise above it, at least a little bit. There's no mushy "everybody loves everybody" moments, not even in the end - it's much more real than that, and this is a good thing.

It's sort of funny that I screened this movie right after watching Love Actually, because it's got sort of a similar structure; that is, a group of stories that seen unconnected, but all intertwine as the movie progresses. The threads don't all tie together at the end, however, but slowly and gradually overlap - there's never a point where all the characters are in the same spot, but almost all of them end up affecting each other in one way or another.

The acting in this movie was fantastic. Everybody did a wonderful job - even people whom I'm normally very shy about praising, like Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, and especially Mat Dillion. These characters were all real people in real situations, with real problems and real prejudices, and I can't think of a single one that wasn't fully believeable.

Rating (0-10): 9.6

Recomendations: Good stuff. Go see it if you're in the mood for something thought-provoking.