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'Crash': Choreographed chaos

The ethnic, racial and economic diversity found in Los Angeles turns the city into a petri dish for hatred in the gritty, emotional fender-bender drama, Crash.

Lions Gate Films 'Crash' A The verdict: Gritty examination of racism in a well-acted ensemble film that succeeds at making viewers feel uncomfortable. Director: Paul Haggis Starring: Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Tony Danza, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, Ludacris, William Fichtner, Brendan Fraser, Terrence Dashon Howard Run time: 113 minutes Release date: May 6, 2005 Rating: R for language, sexual content and some violence. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Making his directing debut with a script he co-wrote, Paul Haggis explores that cross-cultural tension, building on the powerful impression he made with Million Dollar Baby to create a white-hot look at the manifestations of racism. Abrasive, profane and well-acted by an exceptional ensemble, this is simply the best film of 2005 so far.

Not that much is simple about the irony-laden screenplay by Haggis and Bobby Moresco, which traffics in many disparate characters, interconnected by coincidence and placed in situations where their prejudices flare up and consume them.

The story begins and ends with car crashes in the automobile-dependent City of Angels, as Crash becomes a metaphor for the human collisions that occur throughout the film's 48-hour span.

It starts on a snowy night at Christmastime, as an African-American police detective (Don Cheadle) and his attractive Mexican partner and clandestine lover (Jennifer Esposito) stop by the side of a road in the Hollywood Hills to investigate an apparent crash-related dead body. But before we can understand the cop's reaction, the movie flashes back and widens out to view a wide range of characters and their clashes.

Much of the action is set in motion by a pair of black street toughs (Larenz Tate, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges), who banter about the way their race gets stereotyped as criminals, then carjack an SUV owned by an affluent district attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his shrewish wife (Sandra Bullock). He obsesses over whether reports of the incident will lose him more black votes or law-and-order votes, while she has all the doors rekeyed at her home and loudly disparages the Hispanic locksmith who handles the job.

Then a veteran patrolling policeman (Matt Dillon) pulls over a well-heeled African-American couple in a similar SUV, hassling the wife (Thandie Newton) with an invasive body search while verbally abusing her filmmaker husband (Terrence Dashon Howard), as the officer's inexperienced partner (Ryan Phillippe) looks on appalled.

Meanwhile, a hard-working Iranian convenience store owner (Shaun Toub) in a shabby part of town buys a gun to protect himself against outsiders who mistake him for an Arab. Typical of Crash's coincidences, it is the same locksmith (Michael Pena) who arrives to bolster the store's back door and ends up in a potentially fatal argument with the owner when the store is later broken into. Similarly, in the film's most intense sequence, when Newton gets pinned inside her overturned car, it is Dillon who arrives on the scene.

Haggis and his cameraman J. Michael Muro give the film a grainy, pseudo-documentary look, which adds to the film's vise-like hold on an audience.

In a true ensemble cast, Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) manages to stand out, with his understated steely demeanor. Dillon may never have been better and his scenes with Newton are aptly uneasy viewing. Bullock demonstrates a previously unseen dramatic ability. While Haggis' script is Crash's chief asset, he shows his directorial skill in orchestrating such a flawless set of performances.