Crash

Beginning with a single car crash, Paul Haggis's story spirals up and out to involve a host of characters in a multi-strand tale of endemic racism in LA. No one is innocent: blacks, whites, Hispanics and Iranian immigrants are all to some extent indicted on charges of suspicion, mistrust and outright hatred. The disease permeates the social structure from the top down: from District Attorney Dick Cabot playing politics with race to black cop Waters (Cheadle) trying to deal with his criminal brother; from white cop Ryan (Dillon) sexually harassing the wife (Thandie Newton) of a black TV producer to a pair of politically-enlightened car-jackers; from fresh-faced, idealistic cop Hanson (Ryan Phillippe) to an Iranian immigrant (Shaun Toub) who distrusts the Hispanic man who replaces his locks after a break-in at his shop. Criticised in some quarters for being overtly political, Crash at times focuses on its central theme at the expense of credible story; some of the coincidences that bring the various characters together, for example, creak under the weight of carrying the story. On the plus side, the performances are strong (Cheadle, Dillon, Newton and Toub in particular), the tension mounts inexorably to a suitably explosive climax, and Haggis is to be commended rather than criticised for poking his nose into a subject most people would prefer to ignore.