Crash (2005)

REVIEW
A superlative cast (Bullock, Cheadle, Fraser and Dillon head a long list) perform at the top of their game to inform an intelligent, well-constructed, Altmanesque script set in the everyday madness of contemporary America. Divergent lives intersect in a two-day period, as the escalating stresses endemic in daily life are expressed in blinding paranoia and engulfing anger, and find release in eruptions of bloody violence. The film opens with a rear-end collision adjacent to a crime scene with a murder victim dumped at the side of the road, then shifts to the previous day to reveal the myriad events that lead to that moment. A police detective, the Los Angeles District Attorney, a locksmith, a Persian shopkeeper and two squad car policemen interact with random and convoluted effect as fully emotive scenes of frenetic activity flow into interspersed moments of quiet reflection. The protagonists face themselves and each other in unrelenting moments of crisis, often straining their last vestiges of conscience and morality; some succumb, and some rise to find their better natures, against all odds. Director Haggis (Million Dollar Baby) delivers complex personalities with a minimum of exposition, and Byzantine interrelationships are revealed in a cinematic experience at once visceral and dreamlike. The film is arresting and revelatory, providing commentary on the trappings of material comfort versus those qualities that truly sustain the soul. The possibility of redemption and grace is offered to the embattled inhabitants of this familiar urban war zone. Crash delivers intellectual and ingenerate satisfaction commensurate with the attention it demands.