CRASH

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Lions Gate Films
Grade: A-
Directed by: Paul Haggis
Written by: Paul Haggis, from his story
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer
Esposito, William Fichtner, Brendan Fraser, Terrence Dashon
Howard, Ludacris, Thandi Newton, Ryan Phillippe, Larenz Tate
Screened at: Broadway, NYC, 4/27/05

In case you thought that racism went out the window in America with the passage of LBJ’s Civil Rights Act Title IV in 1964, Paul Haggis will set you straight. In his role, he may already be on a short list for a “Best Debut Director” effort with such prestigious award-conferring organizations as New York Film Critics Online. Haggis’s writing is astonishing, particularly the way he evokes the humor within the story’s pathos, and a couple of ironic actions in the all-too-brief 107-minute film could knock your socks off.

Haggis states in the production notes that he got the idea for this movie from a personal experience as an Angelino for the past quarter century. When he came out of a video store one night, he was car-jacked at gunpoint, which “forced me out of my complacency.” He considered the lives of his attackers. He came to realize that in L.A. (I might add more than in New York), there is a greater isolation of ethnic and racial groups given that city’s car culture, wherein the typical middle-class resident gets into the car, drives to work, then drives home without bumping into–or to put it a more dramatic way–“crashing” into those who are of different caste and class. The title of this film refers to both some major and minor auto accidents, and more metaphorically stands in for the coming together of people whose perspectives and backgrounds, whose very lives are quite different from one another’s.

“Crash” is done in an Altman-esque style, vignettes of people who ordinarily would not come together but who by the picture’s end do brush against one another as a result of unforseen events. Think, for example, of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia,” with an array of characters who must deal with anger, guilt and isolation and who ultimately seek and gain forgiveness–though Anderson’s pic has a more biblical tone than Haggis’s. Going a little further back, Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” gives us a view of unhappy people in Southern California, folks from distinct walks of life who connect at least marginally.

Vignettes on display in “Crash” include these personas: Detective Graham (Don Cheale) and his partner, Ria (Jennifer Esposito), whose relationship is not purely on a business level; an Iranian-American, Farhad (Shaun Toub) who owns a shop and buys a gun for protection despite the warnings of his daughter (Bahar Soomekh); a black TV director (Terrence Howard), who together with his wife Christine (Thandie Newton) leads a middle-class life, which does not protect them from the harassment of at least one white cop; a Mexican locksmith, Daniel (Michael Pena); L.A. County District Attorney Rick (Brendan Frazier) and his wife Jean (Sandra Bullock) ; a pair of lower-class black pals, Peter (Larenz Tate) and Anthony (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges); a 17-year police veteran, Officer Ryan (Matt Dillon) and his baby-faced partner, Officer Hansen (Ryan Phillippe).

Though Sandra Bullock is given top billing by the studio marketing department, her role is relatively minor in this true ensemble piece. Quite a diverse population with varied perspectives ultimately “crash” together, both in the white enclave of Brentwood and in the ghetto; various age groups are represented as well as distinct social and ethnic classes.

In the film’s startling opener, police detectives come upon the dead body of a young black man in a scene that leaves Detective Graham particularly horrified. Later on we find out why, as Haggis takes us back just one day to lay out the dramas that affect L.A. residents. Two black men, Anthony and Peter, are ambling about a predominantly white neighborhood, Anthony lecturing Peter about the sickness of racism from the sixties onward, a diatribe evoked by their seeing a white couple reacting in fear to their clean-cut appearance. What occurs moments thereafter forms the most humorous and ironic scene in the story. A while later, when Cameron and his wife Christine are stopped by a pair of cops, they witness police harassment even of prosperous blacks, charged with a felony they did not commit, the young woman manhandled by Officer Ryan while her husband refuses to stand up to improper police behavior. The anger that has been building up in Cameron, who has for too long bottled up his emotions, will erupt later on in an incident that threatens his life.

Haggis points out that few people are all-good or completely evil. Ryan is an out-and-out racist cop who in one scene tells off the black administrator of an HMO, yet he takes good care of his ailing, elderly father. In other words, people are human, with complex prejudices and motives, their diabolical and irrational sides fighting regularly with their saintly and tolerant aspects.

Haggis has expertly merged moments of deep silence with feverish activity, mixing comedy and pathos irreverently and credibly. What comes away is that while intolerance seems to be bred into us, if not actively taught by our parents and friends, we’d do well not to let our emotions carry us so far that we, as well as our alleged enemies, are placed into physical danger. You can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking, says a character in “Most Happy Fella,” but you’d best keep control of your emotions as the best way to avoid explosive encounters. “Crash” is a welcome addition to the year’s cinema, tightly written, fervently performed, expertly directed.

Rated R. 107 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com