“Crash”

This was an interesting film, to say the least. It covers a 36-hour period in the somewhat heated era of post-September 11th in Los Angeles. It is a film that makes us all sit back and analyze our prejudices. Don’t kid yourself; we all have them no matter how “enlightened” we think we are.

The film covers the individual stories of a Persian shopkeeper, two cops, a couple of carjackers, a Korean couple, and a well-heeled Brentwood housewife and her up-and-coming DA husband. Throughout the film, we see their individual stories up until the end when all of their lives converge.

The film is raw, and it’s not something you’d want your children to see. It contains offensive language and lots of racial overtones. At the end, when all of their lives converge, these people learn that perhaps their prejudices were unfounded. They learn that there’s a human being in all of us and that, surprisingly, we are all somewhat similar in our desires, hopes and dreams.

This film won’t make you comfortable, that’s for sure. It will be enlightening and will hold your interest. It moves quickly, and because it switches between the stories of the various characters, it keeps the suspense factor quite high throughout.

I enjoyed this film, but I was left at the end feeling very disturbed because it forced me to realize that I, too, have my prejudices, despite the fact that I would like to believe I don’t. In fact, this film made me realize that we all probably do.