Crash

"Crash"

Crash, a touching film created by the Canadian director and writer Paul Haggis, incorporates the many struggles, faced by today's racial stereotypes, into a collage of various interconnected, cultural dilemmas encountered by the film's multi-ethnical cast ("Paul"). Haggis uses the dialogue and physical actions of his characters to illustrate the various racial stereotypes that are pre-assigned to each race by every individual. This film is a mesmerizing drama that touches the emotions of its audiences' hearts and souls. Many of the elements delivered by Haggis in this film are portrayed in extreme pairs. This pattern of absolute opposites is conveyed as his protagonistic and antagonistic characters, the movie's either night or day setting, and also in the snow and fire scene. In this film, Haggis reveals to the world the diverse roles played by the many races of modern America. Through the blatantly racial problems faced by his characters, Haggis creates a deliberately disturbing film that forces his audiences to question even their own moral values.

Haggis creates over fifteen different characters in this film, but they are all connected in some way. Similar to the way Christopher Nolan presented his film Memento, Haggis shows the last scene of this movie first. With this style, Haggis's audiences focus on the more important development of the story instead of the ending of it (Memento).

Most of Haggis's characters are delivered as both the victims and the creators of the racism surrounding them. A love-hate relationship created by this between his characters and his audience is what delivers the film's sad and ominous tone. The strongest example of this relationship is that of Officer Ryan, played by Matt Dillon, as the racist cop. Officer Ryan makes an unnecessary traffic stop when he thinks he sees a black TV director, played by Terrence Howard, and his light-skinned, African American wife, played by Thandie Newton, doing something they really should not be doing as they are driving. Officer Ryan proceeds to humiliate the woman with a full body search, while her husband is forced to stand by powerless. This scene creates a pure hate towards Officer Ryan, but later Haggis turns his audiences' thoughts of hate into feelings of pity, when the reason for Officer Ryan's racist hatred is revealed. After this scene, the rest of the film builds its intensity with many more examples of racial dilemmas.

In one story two African-American men, Anthony, played by Chris Ludacris Bridges, and Peter, played by Larenz Tate, car-jack the SUV of Rick Cabot, played by Brendan Fraser, and his narrow-minded wife Jean, played by Sandra Bullock. Jean is so unsettled by this experience that she launches into a racist tirade that leaves her baffled husband scratching his head in confusion. One of the people she disgraces in her outburst is Daniel, played by Michael Pena. Through the rest of the movie, Jean goes through an emotional breakdown where she rejects every minority figure in her life. Later in the movie she ironically realizes that her only friend is her Hispanic maid who still looks after her despite how Jean has treated her.

In another story, Farhad, an Iranian immigrant played by Shaun Toub, visits a local gun store with his daughter to purchase a firearm. His daughter, played by Bahar Soomekh, tries to settle a racial argument