Crash (2004/I)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Director:

Paul Haggis

Writers (WGA):

Paul Haggis (story)
Paul Haggis (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

6 May 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

You think you know who you are. You have no idea.

Plot:

Several stories interweave during two days in Los Angeles involving a collection of inter-related characters...

Plot Keywords:

Racist | District Attorney | Hispanic | Locksmith | Police

Awards:

Won 3 Oscars. Another 42 wins & 66 nominations

Cast

Karina Arroyave	...	Elizabeth
Dato Bakhtadze	...	Lucien
Sandra Bullock	...	Jean Cabot
Don Cheadle	...	Det. Graham Waters
Art Chudabala	...	Ken Ho
Sean Cory Cooper	...	Motorcycle Cop (as Sean Cory)
Tony Danza	...	Fred
Keith David	...	Lt. Dixon
Loretta Devine	...	Shaniqua Johnson
Matt Dillon	...	Officer John Ryan
Jennifer Esposito	...	Ria
Ime Etuk	...	Georgie (as Ime N. Etuk)
Eddie J. Fernandez	...	Officer Gomez (as Eddie Fernandez)
William Fichtner	...	Flanagan
Howard Fong	...	Store Owner

Also Known As:

L.A. Crash (Germany)

MPAA:

Rated R for language, sexual content and some violence.

Runtime:

112 min | 115 min (director's cut)

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English | Persian | Spanish | Mandarin | Korean

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Netherlands:12 | New Zealand:R16 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | USA:R (certificate #40991) | Sweden:7 | Taiwan:R-12 | Argentina:16 | France:U | Iceland:16 | Brazil:14 | Belgium:KT | Chile:TE | India:A | USA:Unrated (director's cut) | South Korea:15 | Ireland:15 (DVD rating) | Hong Kong:IIB | Malaysia:(Banned) (theatrical) | Malaysia:U (DVD) | Japan:PG-12 | Australia:MA | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14A (British Columbia) | Canada:14A (Ontario) | UK:15 | Finland:K-11 | Ireland:15A | Singapore:M18 | Germany:12 | Portugal:M/12 | Norway:15 | Philippines:R-13

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Bob Yari Productions

Trivia:

Body count: 1

Goofs:

Factual errors: Kim Lee is not a Korean name. It is just a mixture of two family names. When Koreans use the two words for a name, they use different pronunciations. Common pronunciation of the words are Geum and Yi.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Graham: It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: Matt Dillon/Arctic Monkeys (#31.14)" (2006)

Soundtrack:

Problems

Bold and Compelling Treatise on Racism in Modern Society

Take the pop-cultured infused socio-political discourse of a Spike Lee movie, the glossy grit of a Michael Mann LA crime story, and the compelling mosaic story-telling technique of a Paul Thomas Anderson film, and you'll get the "feel" for Paul Haggis' stunning directorial debut. To boil a film like "Crash" down to such terms, however, would do it severe injustice. Powerful and thought provoking, this is the most accomplished and compelling film since "21 Grams" premiered back at the end of 2003.

"Crash" brilliantly shows through intertwining vignettes, that are often blazingly funny in their brutal honesty and fascinatingly gut-wrenching in their melodrama, how subtle racism (often guised in nervous humor) and overt prejudice (often exasperated by sudden irrational violence and an overabundance of readily available firearms) completely permeate our culture and everyday interactions within society. A hyper intelligent script showcases not characters, but brilliant representations of real people, people we know and pass in the street every day, people not unlike us. People who at first seem to be lost causes in the war against racism (witnessed in Matt Dillon's harried beat cop and Sandra Bulluck's spoiled District Attorney's wife) can often become the most unlikely solutions to the problem, while people who ride in on their high horse (witnessed in Ryan Phillipe's noble young police officer) can turn against the tide in the blink of an eye. No one is immune to it no matter how hard they try to rise above it (witnessed in Don Cheadle's quietly tragic detective).

In the end, everyone is flawed, the racism is inescapable, and the audience feels a twinge of sympathy for just about everyone. Perhaps that is what Haggis is hinting at to be our answer. Showing empathy and being able to relate even on the most remote level to every human being out there is the first step to that true brotherhood of man. Because the film offers no real solution, the discussion and discourse it creates in the minds of the viewers is the first step in solving society's ills. We can't tackle everything at once, but we can open a dialogue, and hopefully, one person conversing with another will be the first step to our salvation. It takes a bold film to raise such questions, and an even greater one to compel an audience to talk about the potential answers, and that is exactly what "Crash" accomplishes.