Crash

A few years ago, a film called All the Rage premiered at the festival; packed with an all-star cast, the movie was an extremely pompous and overblown look at the gun problem in America. Crash takes a similiar route towards exploring race relations in that country, yet it never quite steps into heavy-handedness thanks to a surprisingly funny and touching screenplay by Robert Moresco and director Paul Haggis. The film follows several characters – including a pair of cops (played by Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillippe) and a District Attorney and his wife (Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock) – as they weave in and out of each other’s lives, while confronting their feelings on racism. There’s nothing terribly subtle about Crash – the redemption of most of these characters appears in the form of extreme coincidences – but that’s something that becomes easy to accept as the film progresses; it certainly doesn’t hurt that Haggis includes a number of genuinely moving sequences that are unexpected but effective.

*** out of ****