Film Critique: Crash - Research Paper Example

Hansen, this racist cop’s interactions with a successful Hollywood director Cameron and his spouse Christine, a migrant from Persia who acquires a gun for the protection of his shop, Daniel a Hispanic locksmith and his young daughter who is wary of revolvers and bullets and so on. Crash ideally explores the racial theme in the American society through the lives of the different characters.  Storytelling The story of Crash is narrated through the incidents, which occur in the lives of its various characters within a couple of days.

The set of characters hail from different walks of life but find themselves crossing each other’s paths in the course of the movie. The film begins directly with the police detective on his way to investigate a murder. On his way, with his girlfriend Ria, their car gets involved in a traffic accident. Ria, promptly gets out of the car and begins abusing the Korean woman who was at the wheel of the other vehicle. The Korean woman also reacts vehemently to the verbal assault. Graham mutters to himself, that presently people have become so mechanical in their living that nothing affects them unless they collide with something.

This consists of the central theme of the film. From then on, the film freely moves into the lives of the different characters where the life of each character is influenced in some way by racism. Acting       The film has a large ensemble of cast comprising of big stars like Sandra Bullock and Brendon Fraser.  Critics have opined that, the acting of the Crash has contributed significantly in bringing the director’s vision to reality. Though the film has a wide array of actors and actresses, each is given a small but significant role to portray.

This trend has been noticed on the big screen before in the movies of directors like Robert Altman, John Sales, Spike Lee, Lawrence Kesdan (in his film “Grand Canyon”). Don Cheadle plays Graham, the police detective who becomes involved in the car accident at the beginning of the film. Jennifer Esposito portrays Ria, his girlfriend. Chris Bridges acts as Anthony and Larenz Tate pays Peter, the two black youths who receive inhospitable treatment at the restaurant and carjack the white couple.

Brendon Fraser plays Rick, the fair skinned district lawyer and Sandra Bullock acts as Jean, his pampered wife. Jean is an extroverted racist who harbors issues against people from origins other than her own country. This role is quite unlike any of the roles that Bullock has portrayed so far on screen, and she puts in a spirited performance as the racist wife of the lawyer. Although both Fraser and Bullock have almost cameo roles, their contribution to the film is immense. Michael Pena plays the role of the Daniel, Hispanic locksmith who comes to the couple’s house for changing the locks.

Matt Dillon plays abusive policeman Ryan, who first assaults the black woman and later goes on to save her by risking his own life. Ryan Philippe plays Officer Hansen, the young partner of Ryan. Terrence Howard