Review of Crash

I hadn’t seen this movie before – possibly the title didn’t make me want to rush to the cinema, but I was gripped by the different stories and at times horrified by the assumptions made about the characters just based solely on their race. Whilst I think that Scott Foundas is overly harsh in his criticism of the film, I do feel that the film does use stereotypes to give the illusion that LA is a very difficult place to live and that you are constantly in fear of your life. The film has picked out these extreme ends of the spectrum for dramatic effect, in particular, the Persian shopkeeper who seemed to get angry as soon as anyone tried to explain anything to him.
I agree with Ebert’s view that this is a film where the characters are not held back by political correctness – they say what they really think. I enjoyed the way that the individual stories began to mingle together, often with shocking consequences like the shooting of the little girl. The opening sequence of the film where Don Cheadle’s character says that you have to crash into someone in order to have any sort of physical contact could be true of many big cities. People do live in their own little world, often only reacting to others when circumstances force them to.