Crash opens with a complicated concept - people in LA avoid each other reflexively so you've gotta crash into someone else to touch them - but in reality the message is simple. The world has become a place where it's easy to find something to be afraid of - other people who are different. The media has turned everyone into the stereotype of their race and culture and even appearance.
People have to remember that each person is a unique individual capable of good things as well as bad. Sadly, that's easily forgotten when you're afraid.
The ensemble cast might be described as "powerhouse" with a prodigious number of recognizable names and faces - Sandy Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton, Loretta Devine, Ryan Philippe and Don Cheadle who also produced. There are so many characters that while the ability of director Paul Haggis to weave an effective tapestry of intersecting stories is impressive, the audience isn't able to latch on to anyone. In the film's 100 minutes, I saw snapshots of the lives of many people, but I didn't get to know any of them. Thus, I really didn't care much when bad stuff happened to them.
Crash attempts to sell an idea instead of tell a story. Haggis succeeds at driving home how media characterization of ethnicities has changed society. (Sorry, I'm not using the "r" word because it's loaded with so much baggage that it doesn't convey the correct idea anymore.) But he doesn't succeed in crafting a film that involves the audience. We're spectators to a wonderful show, not participants in a story who emotionally invest in a character. For the kind of film that Crash attempts to be, it falls a bit short of greatness.
So. While it's certainly worth your 100 minutes, Crash isn't in my book a contender for the best film of 2005. The Oscar still rests on the mantle of Munich.
Bottom Line: Very good, see it.
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