Crash: Remarkably intelligent film

[indent]People are randomly colliding particles, fired through the accelerator of modern life, hitting at high speed, splitting, firing off fragments that carve trace patterns on the lives of those with whom they interact. That's Crash, a compelling and intelligent film about how an unconnected group of people interact in the events of 24 hours in Los Angeles.

Unlike most pallid Hollywood output, Crash is thoughtful, challenging and at times intellectually disturbing. It's not one story, rather a dozen, intertwined chapters from many lives that all intersect in one single day. There's a mix of passion, poignancy, jealousy, bigotry, vanity, hipocrisy and innocence spread unevenly through the characters, almost everyone showing a facet of weakness through which we see them. Sometimes more.

Crash is also a series of stories of redemption, and of failure. An angry racist risks his life to save the life of a black woman he assaulted previously. A pampered and arrogant rich woman finds in her Spanish housemaid more friendship, loyalty and affection than in her rich friends. A good cop who tries to uphold his values in a bigoted world becomes an killer of an innocent black man he tries to help. An unrepentant black car thief faces the choice of wealth or humanity. But that simplifies the film more than it deserves. And it's only a small portion of the interwoven tales in the film.

Perhaps the most immediate message is that nothing is easy. In Crash, as in real life, there are no simple answers, no cut-and-dry solutions. Life sucks, no matter what you do. But sometimes we can rise above the crap and, for that fleeting moment, be redeemed. Or destroyed. Sometimes no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we strive, it ends in the crapper. Or so Crash suggests, at least in some of the tales.

Not everything is fully explained or completed. There are a lot of unresolved threads, stories uncompleted. The audience is left wondering at the end about many elements that we've been shown. This isn't a fairy tale; it's a slice of life, and as such doesn't fit into those carefully scripted films that wrap everything up so cleanly at the end. Still, one can't help wonder while the credits roll up what happened to the young cop? To the old man with the prostate problem? To the Iranian shopkeeper? Did the car thief change his life?

Crash seemed to me to be almost British in its style and portrayal of characters. Not everyone is believable, of course, and sometimes the characters are typically overdone or underdone in American film fashion. The DA (Brendan Fraser) is a cardboard cutout. Officer Hanson (Ryan Philippe) was wooden. But overall, the cast did very well at portraying real people. Hollywood could take a page from the British and try casting actors who aren't Beautiful People in the leads now and then.

Crash is an adult film, but has little sexual content (only a brief moment of nudity between Don Cheadle and Jennifer Esposito). Cheadle is the only character I recall who smokes. While perhaps realistic in the scope of the film, having Cheadle a non-smoker would have been more consistent with the other characters. The film also portrays another addict (aside from tobacco) - heroin - but it's a minor character. Cheadle's addiction is one of those unresolved failures in the film, I suppose.

I recommend Crash to anyone who wants a movie that demands attention, avoids simple classification and makes you think. It's provocative and that makes it good in my eyes. Four out of five stars, despite Cheadle's smoking.
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