Product Description

They all live in Los Angeles. And in the next 36 hours, they will collide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4107 in DVD
• Brand: Lions Gate
• Released on: 2005-09-06
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Korean, Persian, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 112 minutes

Amazon.com
Movie studios, by and large, avoid controversial subjects like race the way you might avoid a hive of angry bees. So it's remarkable that Crash even got made; that it's a rich, intelligent, and moving exploration of the interlocking lives of a dozen Los Angeles residents--black, white, latino, Asian, and Persian--is downright amazing. A politically nervous district attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his high-strung wife (Sandra Bullock, biting into a welcome change of pace from Miss Congeniality) get car-jacked by an oddly sociological pair of young black men (Larenz Tate and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges); a rich black T.V. director (Terrence Howard) and his wife (Thandie Newton) get pulled over by a white racist cop (Matt Dillon) and his reluctant partner (Ryan Phillipe); a detective (Don Cheadle) and his Latina partner and lover (Jennifer Esposito) investigate a white cop who shot a black cop--these are only three of the interlocking stories that reach up and down class lines. Writer/director Paul Haggis (who wrote the screenplay for Million Dollar Baby) spins every character in unpredictable directions, refusing to let anyone sink into a stereotype. The cast--ranging from the famous names above to lesser-known but just as capable actors like Michael Pena (Buffalo Soldiers) and Loretta Devine (Woman Thou Art Loosed)--meets the strong script head-on, delivering galvanizing performances in short vignettes, brief glimpses that build with gut-wrenching force. This sort of multi-character mosaic is hard to pull off; Crash rivals such classics as Nashville and Short Cuts. A knockout. --Bret Fetzer

Stills from Crash (click for larger image)

From The New Yorker
A brazenly alive and heartbreaking film about the rage and foolishness of intolerance-the mutual abrasions of white, black, Latino, Middle Eastern, and Asian citizens in the great and strange city of Los Angeles. The movie starts off with separate vignettes in which the characters run afoul of each other, say things better left unsaid, and get into terrible trouble. Later, they cross paths again, sometimes in bizarre coincidences that feel exactly right; some of these scenes play out at the edge of insanity, where contentiousness spills over into tragedy or farce. The furiously candid screenplay was written by Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco, and the picture was directed by Haggis, who, in his first time out as director, demonstrates an amazing skill with actors. Don Cheadle, as a withdrawn, melancholy police detective, is the star, and the other players include Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton as an upper-class African-American couple, Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock as an L.A. district attorney and his bitchy wife, Chris (Ludacris) Bridges and Larenz Tate as carjackers, Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillippe as cops, and Shaun Toub as an Iranian shopkeeper who thinks everyone is out to cheat him. The gentle electronic score is by Mark Isham. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

What?
I rented this movie before it won best picture and turned it off after 30 minutes because I thought is was a ridiculously preachy public service announcement that was ripping off a few dozen movies already made. After it won best picture, I questioned my rush to judgement and rented it again. Much to my dismay, my initial reaction to the flick was not in error. I spent the majority of the time in this move shaking my head in disbelief at occurrences that would never happen. If you are a movie watcher who does not like to be insulted by ridiclous coincidences, this is not your movie. Trust me.

A hackneyed ABC After School Special
I wanted to like this movie. I really did. I had heard good things about it from friends, but in the end, I realized I'd seen every plot line and technique in the movie done before and done much better. "Short Cuts" meets "Do the Right Thing" meets "House of Sand and Fog" meets "Magnolia".

Far from being touched, I was completely irritated that a couple of white guys (Haggis and Moresco) were preaching to me about racism with all the authenticity and subtlety of a hammer (apparently the one referred to in Haggis's acceptance speech).

I for one don't appreciate a director insulting my intelligence with hackneyed cliches, laughable stereotypes and morality tales with all the moral complexity of an ABC After School Special.

I already saw this...when it was called MAGNOLIA, SHORT CUTS, GRAND CANYON...
CRASH...even the title smacks of obviousness.

Rarely have I seen a film handle the issue of racism so clumsily an didactically, and what stuns me even more is that people are actually buying into the ugly, facile stereotypes employed by the screenplay. Paul Haggis' attempt at creating a mosaic of interlocking vignettes fails on fronts, chiefly because the director has little understanding of how people interact. Instead of drawing out subtle communications between the multi-ethnic characters, he goes right for the jugular with laughably overwrought demonstrations of how blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians are all oh-so mean to each other. I've seen Sesame Street episodes with more nuance (and better acting, too, but that's a whole different issue). CRASH panders to the mainstream audience with its reductive portrayal of race relations, and makes no apologies for its ludcrious plot contrivances and overly-tidy characterizations. The fact that members of the Academy thought this was the best film of 2005 is stunning and disgusting on just about every conceivable level. If you want to see a real film about racism in America, rent Spike Lee's DO THE RIGHT THING and avoid this vacant, worthless imitation.