Crash

 

Crash 2004

• Director: Paul Haggis
• Cast: Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Keith David, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, Thandiwe Newton, and many others I haven’t see in other films
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Don Cheadle – Hotel Rwanda, The Assasination of Richard Nixon, The United States of Leland, Bullworth, Devil in a Blue Dress,
• Sandra Bullock – Gravity, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Lakehouse, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, 28 Days, Practical Magic, While You Were Sleeping, Speed
• Matt Dillon – Beautiful Girls, Drugstore Cowboy, Rumble Fish
• Thandiwe Newton – Beloved, Gridlock’d
• Why? Gift from colleague JC
• Seen: Once before. Now 5 June 2021      

       A pile-up in LA opens the film but the crash is more a collision of racism and sexism, of class conflict, of complex personal and professional relationships. The biggest collision, though, is the conflict within each of the individual characters.

       There are an awful lot of people in this film and a lot of things happening, and it all happens the day before the crash which links them together in one way or another.

       It’s a bit too incoherent to succeed fully but it’s a bold and gripping film and it deserves its Oscar for Best Film. 

4* of 5