The Crash - Movie Review Example

Crash In the Lion Gate films’ Crash, the award-winning writer/director/producer, Paul Haggis, has successfully portrayed the issues of race and gender that made a group of strangers to physically and emotionally bump into each other in Los Angeles. After successful career in television, Paul Haggis came into making feature films and became so successful that he is known as the “Million Dollar Baby.” He won the Best Picture award in the 2005 Academy Awards. The screenplay has been presented by Haggis and Bobby Moresco. The movie has been made in the United States and is about several stories going on in two days at Los Angeles portraying “the complexities of racial tolerance in contemporary America” (Crash). The plot supports the social perspective that discusses racial discrimination and its effects on those who suffer from it. The filmmaker has tried to convey the message that racial discrimination should be put to an end and peace and harmony should be spread for the survival of mankind (Howard 131). Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) is a police detective. He abhors the fact that his drugged out mother cares more for his brother, who happens to be a thief and a street criminal, rather than him. Ria (Jennifer Esposito) is Graham’s girlfriend. She is also a detective and is often angry at him for being emotionally distant from her. She also objects when he shows indifference to the fact that they belong to different races; Graham was an African-American and she was a Hispanic. Rick (Brendan Fraser) and Jean (Sandra Bullock) is another couple in the movie. Rick is a white district attorney in Los Angeles. The much pampered wife, Jean, has a great disapproval deep within her heart for people of other races and color, especially blacks. The incident in which her SUV is carjacked by two African-American men adds fuel to the fire and her hatred grows. This is where the filmmaker has tried to show how much people hate people of other races. The men who carjack Jean’s SUV are Anthony (Chris Bridges) and Peter (Larenz Tate). Anthony hates white people whereas Peter is liberal in this sense, and they often talk about society and race. Another couple in the movie is Cameron (Terrence Howard) and Christine (Thandie Newton). Cameron happens to be an African-American television producer in Hollywood. Officer Ryan (Matt Dillon), who is a racist, and Officer Hansen (Ryan Phillipe) stop them for inquiry one night when they were returning from a party. The couple finds the interrogation and search humiliating when one of the detectives tries to bug Christine. Another story involves Daniel (Michael Pena) and his daughter. Daniel is a locksmith who works hard enough but thinks that his customers are turned down due to his looks. Farhad (Shaun Toub) is a Persian-immigrant who keeps afraid after the 9/11 attacks and is constantly worried about the safety of his family and shop so much so that he decides to buy a gun. Graham and Ria are in a car talking about Los Angeles when they are struck by a car. Ria gets out and encounters an Asian woman who was in the other car. They make racial comments on each other. Waters moves toward another crime scene on the road where he sees a body. The movie then turns to one day back where Farhad and his daughter are shown buying a handgun. Farhad and the shopkeeper get into a fight as the latter did not like the Persian Farhad. Then there is the scene where Anthony and Peters carjack Jean’s SUV while she were leaving a restaurant with her husband. Then, at another place, Graham and Ria arrive at a crime scene in which there had been shooting. The man who survived was a cop, Conklin, while a black cop, Lewis, was dead. The situation is confusing. Jean hires Daniel, a locksmith, to change the locks of all doors and is still suspicious while Rick is thinking of ways how the carjack can be used as an advantage for his election campaign. Then, the movie shows the two cops, Ryan and Hansen, stopping a SUV for interrogation driven by Cameron and his wife. Cameron talks to them politely while Christine is drunk and throws taunting remarks on Ryan which makes him angry and starts searching her physically with bad intent, and finally lets them go. At home, Christine fights with Cameron for not stopping the cop from searching her. In another scene, Daniel, the locksmith, is shown soothing his daughter who is afraid of bullets. In the carjacked SUV, Anthony and Peters keep discussing racism and bump into something. They find that it was an Asian man from China under the vehicle and pull him out. They drop him at a hospital. They keep discussing racism and Anthony decided he will never steal from blacks anymore. Then there is a series of scenes in which Daniel is being suspected by Rick for cheating him. Ria is angry at Graham when he stops to answer a phone while they have sex, and Graham makes a Hispanic joke. Farhad finds anti-Arab graffiti ransacking his shop. Jean is angry at her Mexican maid, and there is a series of other scenes portraying racism. At the end, Jean realizes she has been wrong in thinking bad of people of other races, and becomes friends with her maid too. Peter comes out to be the younger brother of Graham’s and is dead now. The whole movie revolves around characters of different races falling into each other and realizing at the end that racial discrimination should be ended. The movie was a positive experience for me. I found it very interesting in that it talks about a very important issue that prevails in our so-called modern world. We think we are liberal but we are not able to come out of the small frame of mind that makes us hate people belonging to other races, casts, color and creed (Jones). I experienced cultural relativism while watching the movie because I think that all beliefs and values are culture-specific. Therefore, the characters behaved toward other races according to what they learn from their cultures. The need is to create awareness among people through movies like Crash, regarding the racism and its elimination. I would watch this movie again and also recommend it to my friends because I am very much interested in understanding what makes people behave badly toward other races, and want to make efforts to eliminate racism and spread love. Works Cited Crash. “Synopsis.” Lion Gate Films, n.d. 13 Dec 2011. < http://www.crashfilm.com/>. Howard, Philip S.S. “Unearthing Colonial Theology: A Critical Interrogation of the Movie Crash.” Crash Politics and Antiracism: Interrogations of Liberal Race Discourse. USA: Peter Lang, 2008 Jones, Gregory Alan. Racism and Bad Faith. USA: Oregon State University, 2000. Read More