Crash, 2004
Director: Paul Haggis
Cast: Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Thandie Newton, Matt Dillon
Stage: Home Theatre on a lonely night.
Crash in short: Over a thirty-six hour period in Los Angeles, a handful of disparate people's lives intertwine as they deal with the tense race relations that belie life in the city. Among the players are: the Caucasian district attorney, who uses race as a political card; his Caucasian wife, who, having recently been carjacked by two black men, believes that her stereotypical views of non-whites is justified and cannot be considered racism; the two black carjackers who use their race both to their advantage and as an excuse; partnered Caucasian police constables, one who is a racist and uses his authority to harass non-whites, and the other who hates his partner because of those racist views, but who may have the same underlying values in his subconscious; a black film director and his black wife, who believes her husband doesn't support their black background enough, especially in light of an incident with the racist white cop; partnered police detectives and sometimes lovers.
Preps: I am not familiar with this piece, although it must have been in local cinemas a while ago. The cast sounds splendid, the storyline also. Mmm, my Sandra Bullock. A must see then. Let's check it out.
Reality: Wow. One of the better ones lately on the racism topic. Or to be more exact, prejudice topic. It emphasizes the meaning of all prejudice we are born, raised, burdened with. And what it may lead us into. In perticular, the piece addresses violence towards black people and mixed people (half black, mexicans, etc). The whole US knows they steal, rape, make violent moves all of the sudden.. However, is this for real? My heart shook all evening because the movie gave me the thrills. The negative ones. The ones where your soul wants to crumble back in deep shame of being a white person. Because if we want it or not, because of limited individuals of our colour and race, the rest of the world looks at us as if we are the biggest barbarians there is. In some sense, I might agree. However, violence because prejudice cannot and in reality isn't limited to race, sex, genre of music, height, etc. It is limited to areas, where it's praised and taught, where you are doing right when threatening people that look, feel, taste, smell differently.
The movie faces us with numerous important scenes. We are supposed to take the good deed out of it. The line. The one thing we cannot do to each other. In some cases it's verbal violence. In others shooting around just for fun. In some physical abuse of black man's wife. It doesn't matter if they are famous.
The one thing that is indesputeably gorgeous about this piece is the 36 hour slot, where the paths of all those people, who even don't know each other, somehow collide. So they face each other in situations they could never imagine. The cop, molesting the wife of the famous director, gets stuck with her under a burning car, rescuing her. Life is a funny thing and world a small place - eventually you could run into the one you molested one day ago and would be forced to help him or even worse, would be in the position of asking a favour of that same person.
The piece will make you respect life and its diversity very much. It will make you think about all the abuse, anger, everything you express to the persons that surround you or some unknown people. Spectacular script, good delivery. I didn't notice some highlights on other effects, however they weren't needed. The moral of the story - if you have a powerful story, it doesn't need much enhancement. Same as in music with the lyrics :)
The crash is obviously named after the collision point - where some cars crash and some fates definitely change forever.
My personal rating: 9,0 (superb movie, a solid story with one of the best possible deliveries).
Crash on IMDB
The Crash.
