Crash

I have to admit something right out of the gate with this film. I saw it casually back in 2005 and didn’t pay much attention to it then because it was considered a foregone conclusion that Brokeback Mountain was going to be that year’s winner. In fact, I paid so little attention to it that I only remembered little snippets of it afterwards and when the Oscar’s Best Picture envelope was opened and Crash was announced as the winner I was surprised, but not enough to go back and rewatch it. Fast forward to 2024. I have heard complaints over the years about this one calling it tone deaf and the worst film to ever win Best Picture, right up there with Green Book, and so I went into this film expecting to have a lukewarm response to it at best. I fully expected to see a film that didn’t age well and was totally off key with the world climate. 

To my surprise I found a fascinating, often difficult to watch film about racism, both the casual type and the blatant. Neither is presented in a subtle way and that is the primary weakness of the film but that’s also kind of the point. Paul Haggis isn’t trying to be nuanced here. He’s trying to take a social issue and push it into our faces in a way that it will make even the most tolerant and open minded person blush with shame because there are very few people in this world who have not one ounce of racism in them. The best of us are able to immediately push it out of our minds and pretend it didn’t ever pop up in the first place but we as a species cannot help categorizing by stereotypes, even within our own races.  This is known as unconscious bias and many of us have had to take classes on this for our jobs in a vain attempt to purge us of something we don’t even consciously do.  That covers what we call casual racism, the type of thing that would make a white woman clutch her husband’s arm harder if two black men dressed in hoodies were walking her way down the street at night.

Then there is the more overt racism, the type that calls attention to itself. We see that in the character of Jean (Sandra Bullock), the wife of D.A. Rick (Brendan Frasier), who, afraid after just getting carjacked by two black men, is having her door locks replaced. She instantly judges the locksmith installing the new locks based on his race and personal appearance, assuming he will turn around and sell copies of the keys to his “Gangbanger friends.” The man, Daniel Ruiz (Michael Peña), is hispanic and has plenty of tattoos, but is not a gangster but a family man with a wife and young daughter. There is also a Persian man, Farhad (Shaun Toub) and his daughter, Dorri (Bahar Soomekh) who get racially profiled when trying to purchase a firearm. The dealer spouts off about Jihads and assumes they are Islamic. 

Everything about this movie points a finger at racism. Sergeant John Ryan (Matt Dillon), looking for the carjackers who took the DA’s vehicle, pulls over an affluent black couple even though he knows they are not the guilty party. He uses his position to harass the couple, going as far as frisking the wife, Christine (Thandie Newton), taking it well beyond the professional level. Later it is revealed that his father lost his business thanks to affirmative action and cannot get insurance to assist with his debilitating condition. The HMO administrator, Shaniqua (Loretta Devine), becomes a target for his frustrations and he accuses her of taking a job better run by white men who lost out thanks to that affirmative action. Ryan’s partner, Tom Hansen (Ryan Phillippe), is a rookie who has asked to be reassigned on the grounds of his partner’s racism. He stood by, uncomfortable with how his partner stepped over the line handling Christine, but said and did nothing in the moment. Yet he too will make a snap decision later in the film that profiles a black man and ends up shooting and killing him. 

Perhaps the most effective example in the film of racism is that of Farhad’s interactions with Daniel Ruiz, the locksmith. Daniel has been assigned to replace the lock’s in Farhad’s store. When he replaces them he notices that the door is damaged and new locks will not solve the problem. He tells Farhad this but Farhad insists that he is being cheated and refuses to even pay for the locks that are already installed let alone for someone to come and replace the door. Later, the shop gets vandalized and robbed and he assumes the hispanic tattooed man must have done it to get even with him. He gets his newly acquired gun and goes to the man’s house to get his money back. He pulls his gun and fires it, nearly shooting Daniel’s young daughter in the back. This scene is horrifying and Michael Peña’s agony, thinking his daughter has just been shot, perhaps killed, is enough to break even the most callous of hearts. 

No one escaped this film unscathed, even the bit performers. Branden Frasier is primarily concerned about how the carjacking will affect his reelection. Since the carjackers were black he will either lose the black vote for coming down hard on them and if he doesn’t go that route he will lose the law-and-order vote. Sandra Bullock is absolutely nasty in her diatribe against Daniel Ruiz but later will realize, after she takes a hard fall down the stairs, that the only one who comes to her aid is her hispanic house keeper. Detective Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) is sleeping with his hispanic partner, Ria (Jennifer Esposito), whom he keeps referring to as Mexican when she is from Puerto Rico and El Salvador. The two are involved in a fender bender in the opening of the film with an Asian woman that descends into Ria mocking the asian woman’s accent. 

Officer Tom Hansen, when he tries to get reassigned after the incident between Ryan and Christine, is told by his superior officer, Lieutenant Dixon (Keith David), a black man, that reporting racism amongst the ranks would reflect badly on the police as a whole as well as jeopardize both of their careers. He will accept transferring Tom only on condition of it being for a reason other than the one Tom has addressed. Christine fights with her husband, Cameron (Terrance Howard), because he did nothing when she was being sexually assaulted by officer John Ryan. He defends his actions because he is a black man and the officer was white and armed. It doesn’t matter that he is an affluent television director, he is still a black man who was pulled over by a white cop. Cameron faces this kind of profiling at work, too, being told by his Italian script writer Fred (Tony Danza) that one of his black characters is no longer saying his lines like a stereotypical black man. Fred doesn’t see the irony that he is speaking to another black man who doesn’t speak that way, either.

This is an emotionally charged film with a lot to say about a very touchy subject. To some people it will definitely be too uncomfortable of a subject to watch, especially if they have been a victim of profiling. I spent a few years living in Louisiana and Mississippi and saw my fair share of it there but was mostly shielded from it in my formative years growing up in Montana. It was not something I personally noticed in my early years thanks to growing up in a place and time where there wasn’t a whole lot of diversity. That’s not the world we live in anymore and I deal on a daily basis with people of nearly every race, color, persuasion and belief. The world has gotten a whole heck of a lot more diverse than even when Crash was released. Were it made today it would include gender identity, sexual preference, transvestism and body positivity into the mix of things. Those have become just as much hot topic profile points as race is. 

Paul Haggis has crafted a fantastic, if brutal look at this troubling subject that has had polarizing responses throughout the last twenty years since it first released. The film is not meant to be a breezy feel good story about a large group of people living their lives in Los Angeles. It’s meant to provoke strong reactions from the audience and it has done just that. Is it better than Brokeback Mountain? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Some people accused the Academy of being afraid to vote for the “Gay Cowboy” movie but, to be honest, that movie did get the nomination in the first place and, even though we will never know how many votes each individual movie received, I strongly suspect it was a close race. Crash won the vote in the end and it is well worth watching, just don’t expect to feel good after doing so. It’s just not that type of movie. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Paul Haggis and Cathy Schulman (won)

Best Director: Paul Haggis

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Matt Dillon

Best Original Screenplay: Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco (won)

Best Film Editing: Hughes Winborne (won)

Best Original Song: “In the Deep” by Michael Becker and Kathleen York

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Release Date: May 6, 2005

Running Time: 112 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Larenz Tate, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, Williams Fictner, Brendan Fraser, Terrance Howard, Sandra Bullock, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillipe and Don Cheadle

Directed By: Paul Haggis