Crash (2004) Movie Review:


If you don’t know the name Paul Haggis, quite yet you better learn it and fast.

Haggis could be the next big thing that movie-goers and film buffs have been yearning for.

Haggis has been a creative force behind some of the television’s more critically acclaimed and ground-breaking shows from “The Love Boat” to “thirtysomething”. Haggis is probably best known for creating the moderately successful crossing-borders cop show, “Due South”. But it wasn’t until the 1996 series “EZ Streets” that Haggis began to flex his directing muscles and show an audience what he was capable of. The series only lasted 9 episodes but for those who saw it, they still remember the name Paul Haggis.

Just last year, Paul Haggis garnered his first Academy Award nomination for his screenplay to “Million Dollar Baby” but lost. Some say he was robbed.

“Crash” marks the first time for Haggis to direct and write a major motion picture. The film covers multiple-angles in the day-in-the-life of some major players in Los Angeles. Each of the main players are influenced and have to deal with racism in our world. All the intertwining plots and multiple characters are very reminiscent of the kinds of films legendary filmmaker Robert Altman used to make. The film stars Don Cheadle as a LA detective, Matt Dillon as a racist cop, Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock as the district attorney and his wife. The film also stars Thandie Newton, Larenz Tate, Ryan Philippe, Jennifer Esposito, Ludacris and Keith David.

“Crash” is probably, hands down, the best ensemble drama since Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia” in 1999. The intricate plot, the evolution of characters, the all encompassing tension and the film’s perfect placement of music make this film a film buff’s dream come true. You have to see it to believe it.

Aside from the film’s amazing construction are the amazing lead performances from Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton. Then there are also incredible performances from supporting players like Larenz Tate and Ryan Philippe. But what was probably the most amazing about the supporting cast were the performances by Shaun Toub and Bahar Soomekh, who play Persian immigrants who watch their family store unravel as racial tension escalates. I was so blown away by their honest and forthcoming father-and-daughter character performances.

What I also loved about this film was how it challenges the audience to follow the storyline even if it’s probably not something you want to talk about. Racism is a touchy subject but Haggis handles the topic with intelligence, careful planning and brilliant execution. It is so easy to see how this film could have been a disaster but that is also part of its brilliance. In today’s world we need a film like this to speak to people and help us to better understand our cultural diversity.

“Crash” is the best film I have seen this year, thus far.

So Says the Soothsayer



Dean Kish

Good people do bad things, and bad people do good things. Never mind that movies usually try to simplify the battle between good and evil by focusing on noble heroes fighting against evil villains. In “Crash,” that age-old struggle is more frightening and realistic: it takes place inside the individuals whose lives intertwine during a tense 24-hour period in Los Angeles. And, as we watch this riveting film unfold, we can’t help wondering about our own strengths and imperfections

Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? I thought I knew after a couple of scenes. One cop (Matt Dillon), who fondles an African-American woman (Thandie Newton) after pulling over her and her TV producer husband (Terrence Howard) for a bogus traffic infraction, is surely a villain. His young partner (Ryan Phillippe) objects to such obnoxious behavior, so he must be a good guy. But, surprisingly, like all the diverse characters in this amazing film, both men act admirably in some situations and despicably in others. They are oh-so human.

Events here take place in one of our nation’s greatest melting pots, and racism surfaces in almost every scene. People toss out ethnic slurs and stereotypical comments like poison-coated confetti on New Year’s Eve. Although most of these remarks are hateful and made me cringe, some come across as quite humorous, especially the bickering between two carjackers (Larenz Tate and Ludacrus) who complain about white people believing that all black people are criminals.

The L.A. District Attorney and his angry wife (Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock), who own a vehicle stolen by Tate and Ludacrus, exhibit racist attitudes in different ways. Bullock insists the Hispanic locksmith (Michael Pena) can’t be trusted, and Fraser shows more interest in maintaining multi-cultural political support than in finding out the truth about what could turn out to be a high profile case. He seeks help from a conscientious detective (Don Cheadle) with problems of his own, including fallout from an ethnic remark he made to his partner (Jennifer Esposito), a woman of Puerto Rican descent.

I love to be surprised in a movie, and “Crash” is full of unpredictable moments. The two most dramatic ones involve the locksmith and his little daughter. In one poignant sequence, the girl’s caring father soothes her with a delightful fairy story; and in the film’s most powerful scene, these two sympathetic characters connect with a Persian shop owner (Shaun Toub) in a most unexpected way.

Films with so many characters and interweaving stories usually leave me cold. I’m one of the few critics who didn’t rave about “Magnolia” or “Traffic.” But “Crash” got to me big time. Directed and co-written by Paul Haggis (who also wrote the “Million Dollar Baby” screenplay), this movie did more than hold my interest. It touched my soul.

Betty Jo Tucker

With its large ensemble cast, L.A. setting, intertwined narrative strands and heavily emotional tone, this film feels perhaps a bit too much like Magnolia for its own good. But it's a solid film about seriously important issues.

All of the plot threads deal with racial issues: A District Attorney and his paranoid wife (Fraser and Bullock) are carjacked by two black teens (Bridges and Tate). A pair of very different cops (Dillon and Phillippe) surprise themselves during tense situations. A wealthy couple (Newton and Howard) endure a horrible incident, then have their worldview challenged even further. Two detectives (Cheadle and Esposito) find their interracial relationship strained to the breaking point. A Latino locksmith (Peña) copes with slurs and a terrifying assault. And a Middle Eastern family (Toub, Soomekh and Sirtis) feels oppressed by everyone around them.

This film can't help but get under our skin, thanks to extremely strong production values and transparent, raw performances from the entire cast. Director-cowriter Haggis (Million Dollar Baby) tackles the race issue from just about every conceivable angle; each scene snaps with life and energy, tapping into the emotions and highlighting the issues in extremely insightful ways. It's impossible to pick a standout cast member--they're all astonishing. But the strongest scenes are the two shocking encounters between Newton and Dillon. While Peña has perhaps the film's most engaging and involving character.

This is clearly meant to be provocative and challenging, wrestling with difficult issues and approaching the themes from all kinds of angles. The script keeps things nicely grounded in honest reality, avoiding obvious flashpoints for something much more meaningful and resonant. But this means that it's also extremely over-constructed, relying heavily on coincidence and emotional manipulation. Essentially, it's an examination of the symptoms, never touching on causes or solutions. And it gets increasingly heavy and pessimistic as it goes. But the film is so well shot and edited, with such complex dialog and acting, that it still has the power to change the way we see the world.

Rich Cline

Los Angeles, a city like no other. The car is king and no one every meets another as the population travel around city encased in metal, plastic and glass. Tensions are high as the different races, religions and cultures seldom mix, breeding mistrust and fear of anything that is different. It a car crash to bring people together and in the heat of that exchange dialogue is opened and people actually interact. LA is a city like no other.

Interweaving stories of people’s lives over a short time period is nothing new in movie but this small snippet into the social problems of Los Angeles is a captivating one.

Paul Haggis’s feature film directorial debut is an impressive piece of cinema. The screenwriter of ‘Million Dollar Baby’ takes a look at the fragile balance that exists in LA between the races, religions and cultures that make up the population of the city. The film examines the increasing levels of mistrust, resentment, misunderstanding and fear that engulfs LA, as people to go about their lives.

Here we see thirty-six hours in the lives of a group of people whose paths cross in various different and dramatic ways. We have an Iranian shopkeeper, a Latino locksmith, a bigoted LAPD police officer, a fear filled District Attorney’s wife, a preaching car-jacker, a TV director been discriminated against, a DA who’ll do anything to win over the ethnic vote and a detective with family problems. All of these characters come from different backgrounds, social classes and areas of the city but all them have one thing in common, the mistrust of the people of LA.

While ‘Crash’ might seem like a statement on racism it is much more than that. The film is about the separation of the cultures and races within the city and lack of interaction that breeds misunderstanding and mistrust that escalated into fear. Here we see the upper class fearing every minority, black people who have money fearing the LAPD and how they are seen in the work, Iranians thinking everyone is against them, LAPD officers mistrusting their fellow officers over racial opinions and young black American’s thinking everyone is against them and all white people are racists. Each story is treated extremely realistically with the minimum amount of cliché, portraying the city and its citizens as a population on the edge of collapse.

Bringing these stories and characters to live are some exceptional performances from the ensemble cast. Don Cheadle is one of the finest actors working in cinema today and his role as Detective Graham Waters proves this again. He is a well-respected member of the LAPD who sees the racial struggle on a day-to-day basis but his family problems keep encroaching into his job and life. Sandra Bullock leaves her usual rom-com persona behind to deliver a very honest and truthful performance as Jean Cabot, the wife of the District Attorney and a woman of wealth and status that has a mistrust of any ethnic minority. Ryan Phillippe and Matt Dillon are exceptional as two LAPD officers with very different views on how to interact with people of other races. Brendan Fraser plays the DA very well, thinking only about votes and not about the real problems of the city. Terrance Dashon Howard and Thandie Newton are excellent as a well to do black couple witness racism first hand and have two different reactions to it. Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges tackles his most dramatic role yet and shows great promise. With the rest of the cast been just as good it is hard to think of a better ensemble in resent years.

‘Crash’ is brilliantly acted and expertly written. Dealing with a subject matter like this was never going to be easy and the film hardly ever descends into clichés. While there are a few stereotypes here, they are dealt with realistically, giving reason for them and outlining their fears and objections. This is a film that highlights the problems but offers few solutions, stressing the problems that Los Angeles currently faces.

Jamie Kelwick

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