Crash

"Why can't we all just get along?" --Rodney King, 1992.

Racism must die! But, unfortunately, it never will. It's part of human nature. Everybody tends to group other people according to their own beliefs. That is part of our own minds' heuristics. Heuristics are simple, efficient rules of thumb that our minds create to make sense of this world. Heuristics help us make decisions, judgments, and solve problems. Without them, we wouldn't be able to make any decisions and we would be overwhelmed by the massive amounts of information that bombard our senses, but sometimes, they lead to biases which are incorrect.

Hopefully, education and mass awareness will help us to get along and treat everyone respectfully. In order to do that, we have to treat everyone individually and not lump people into a group by their race. That means we'll have to get to know people on an individual basis instead of prejudging them. We'll still have our prejudices against other groups of people by other classifications like religion, social classes, political parties, etc., but at least it won't be through race or color.

Crash was a powerful movie about some people who come from vastly differing backgrounds and how they're lives all come crashing together within a span of 36 hours. The plot is complex as the filmmakers try to show how their lives are all interconnected in some way. The characters are complex as well. Each character symbolizes a different race, but they're very multi-dimensional.

Sandra Bullock plays a housewife who is married to the District Attorney of Los Angeles. They live in a nice Brentwood mansion. She seems to be stuck up and goes through anxiety that only rich people suffer from.

As Sandra Bullock and her husband, Brendan Fraser, the DA, finish their shopping at the Third Street Promenade, they get GTA'd by Ludicris and his friend, Peter.

Since Fraser's running for office, he is troubled by this carjacking and how the public will perceive it. He doesn't want to lose the black vote and he doesn't want to lose the law and order vote as well.

When they have a Mexican locksmith come to change the locks on their house, Sandra says she wants the locks changed again in the morning because the locksmith looks like a gangbanger. The locksmith overhears this and is sad. Then, he goes home and sees his young daughter hiding under her bed. She says she heard some gunshots and was scared. He gives her a magic invisible and impenetrable cloak that will protect her. He says a magic fairy gave it to him when he was young and he was never shot or stabbed before.

He goes on to fix a Persian shopowner's lock. He tells him that he can't fix the lock, because the shopkeeper needs a new door. The Persian guy gets pissed off because he feel that he's trying to rip him off. The Persian guy goes to a gunshop with his daughter to protect himself from recent robberies he's had. The gun dealer starts getting frustrated because the Persian guy keeps talking in his native language with his daughter instead of English. He tells him to get his terrorist ass out of his store. The daughter doesn't want the gun and would rather get their money back, but the gun dealer refuses to give them their money back and gives her the gun and lets her choose any type of ammunition she wants. She chooses the red box and storms away.

Later, the Persian shopkeepers store is destroyed by vandalism. He gets so freakin' angry he gets his gun and goes to shoot the Mexican locksmith, because he thinks it's all his fault since he didn't fix the lock. He waits for the locksmith to come home and right when he's about to shoot him, the locksmith's daughter runs towards her dad. She jumps right in front of her dad as the gun goes off. The locksmith cries out in agony believing that she's dead. Later, it turns out that somehow, miraculously, the bullet didn't go through her. The magic impenatrable cloak really worked!

The Persian shopkeeper is stunned. He can't believe what he had just done. He also is in disbelief about the girl being okay after he shot the gun. He tells his own daughter that the little girl was his angel.

The daughter is relieved that her shopkeeper dad has changed his attitude. She smiles, because she's the one that put blank bullets in the gun.

Meanwhile, two cops, Matt Dillon and his partner, are after two black carjackers who stole the D.A.'s black Navigator. They spot a black person who is driving a vehicle by the same description and pull him over. They spot a light-skinned black woman inside the SUV who lifts her head up after giving her husband fellatio. Dillon decides to have fun with them and harasses them. The black man (who is a movie director) and woman are in their car laughing because they can't believe they got caught, but they start getting scared once the officers tell them to get out of their car. Dillon starts frisking them and then puts his nasty hands all over the black director's wife. He starts fingerfucking her as her husband watches. The black director is a mild-mannered respectable man who grew up white. He didn't want to get in any trouble. He apologizes to the officers and asks to be let off with a warning. His wife looks at him with disgust and betrayal for his cowardice. She wanted him to fight back. But, what could he do in that difficult situation? If he fought back, the cops might have done something worse to them.

Ludicris and his friend drive around talking about philosophy and racism and why they do what they do. Ludicris defends himself by saying that they aren't robbing from black people. As he's driving recklessly, he hits an Asian Korean chinaman as the man tries to open his van. After running him over, they notice that they've been driving with him still stuck underneath the SUV.

That scene was pretty scary to watch. It makes me paranoid now everytime I go biking. I just pray that other cars don't hit me.

Ludicris throw the Korean chinaman in front of the hospital and take off. When they try to sell the SUV to a car chop shop, the owner of the chop shop says that he won't buy it because of the blood. On the Discovery Channel, they show how cops can detect and trace the blood. Then, Ludicris and his buddy carjack another black Navigator. This time, it's the black director's SUV. And this time, the black director's pissed. He's been fighting with his wife over the cop incident. He fights back even though Ludicris and his dawg have guns. Cops see them fighting and start chasing after them. The director and Ludicris both get in the car. They drive off and are followed by cop cars. Finally, the director gets out and starts cussing at the mofo police. Dillon's partner recognizes him and realizes that he's upset over last night's incident. He manages to calm him down and tells the cops not to shoot. The black director and Ludicris drive away shaken by what just happened. The director tells Ludicris that he's ashamed of him and that he should be ashamed of himself and let's him go. If it was me, I'd have the cops arrest him.

Dillon tells his partner, who asked to be reassigned because of Dillon's racism, says, "You think you know who you are? You have no idea."

Dillon's partner later drives home at night and gives a ride to someone. He turns out to be Ludicris' partner. They start talking. The black guy starts saying that he likes the country music he's playing on the radio and that he loves hockey. The off-duty police officer thinks that he's being sarcastic and they start getting into an argument. The black guy starts laughing because he sees that the white guy also carries around a little catholic figurine in his car. He starts pulling something out of his pocket and the white guy tells him not to. He pulls it out, but the white guy freaks out and shoots him. Bang! He pulls over and sees that the black guy was just pulling out the same figurine he had in his car. The white cop looks sad, but since he's scared, he throws the black guy's body down the side of the hill. He burns his beatup car and walks away.

A crowd of homeless people start gathering around the fire. Somehow, the movie director drives to the very same spot and pulls over. He looks like he's reminiscing over the past day's events and starts throwing wood over the burning car.

Earlier that day, Dillon responds to a car crash. He comes to save whoevers trapped inside the overturned car that's about to explode. It turns out to be the director's wife. She starts screaming to get away from her, but he assures her that he's not going to touch her. He saves her life seconds before the car turns into a fireball. He finds redemption. Dillon was mad because his dad, who helped blacks by hiring them, lost his government contract business when they gave the contract over to minorities. After his dad got sick, a black woman wouldn't help him because his HMO didn't cover him.

A black cop and his lover and partner, a Latina, are humping each other when his mom calls. He tells his mom, not now, because he's having sex with a white woman.

Later on, they get into a car accident, and he says this poetic, but bizarre statement: It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

I would have to disagree with his conclusion. That is definitely not why people crash into each other.

His mom just loved his prodigal brother. After getting out of the crash, the black cop sees that the police are investigating another crime scene. He sees that it was his brother who was shot, killed, and thrown down the hill.

His latina lover starts arguing with the Asian Korean chinawoman over who caused the accident. I've never heard such things coming out of a Korean lady (ahjumma) before. She was cursing and yelling racial epithets like there was no tomorrow. This didn't seem realistic to me. You'll never see a middle-aged Korean woman do this. She might say this in Korean, but not English.

The Korean lady rushes over to the hospital where her husband was. He was the guy who was run over by Ludicris.

Ludicris, after being dropped off on a street corner by the movie director, goes back to where he ran over the Korean guy. He discovers that inside the cargo minivan there were a dozen Chinese people. He goes to sell the car and its cargo. The car chop shop owner and his buddy were really happy to see its cargo 'cuz all they saw were dollar signs.

Ludicris, however, must have had a change of heart, because we see him dropping off the cargo in Chinatown. He let the Chinese people go and gave them $30 bucks for something to eat. The Chinese guy, who is scared, doesn't say anything and walks away with the money. "Damn dopey chinamen!"

What didn't make sense to me was that a couple of Koreans were running a Chinese smuggling business. I've never heard of that ever happening. That's not realistic. Why'd they screw this up like that in the movie?

I know I've left out a lot of other stuff that happened in the movie. The way the movie tried to portray the deeply convoluted interrelationships made it very complex. It reminds me of Magnolia and how that movie tried to show the interrelationships between its characters.

The movie did a good job showing the complexities of each character and their reasons for their motivations. The movie shows how nobody is completely good nor completely bad.

We're all affected by the actions of others. One good deed can really change another person for the better. This movie teaches us that how we act towards others can change the actions and attitudes of others for worse or for the better.

Okay, so the movie was too highly contrived. It may have been artistic, but laughably unrealistic, especially to that extent of the number of coincidences. This is the sort of thing found in Korean dramas where all the characters are deeply intertwined. But, at the same time, it's not totally impossible. In fact, everyone is connected to everybody else in one way or another in real life. Just look at the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.

I thought the acting was superb for the most part. But, the acting by the Koreans and the Persian shopkeeper were terrible. They were overacting. I thought Ludicris was a bit mouthy. He came off as a smart ass.

The story was really great. It's totally Oscar-worthy. I'm glad it won.

I think it's a movie that everyone should watch. It's not perfect, but it is an important movie because of its subject-matter and the way it shows the connection between different people. Whether you love it or hate it, you can't deny that's an important piece of work. It should be viewed in schools and discussed.

The Highs: Complex, powerful, profound, thought-provoking. Great acting, story, writing. Very emotional.

The Lows: Too contrived for some. For a movie about dispelling racism, it still mixes up Koreans and Chinese people. It also messes up Korean names. Kim Lee-what the heck?!

The Verdict: A must see film. Other films have tackled racism before, but none have presented its messages and characters in this way.

My rating: B+, 89.