OPPapers.com

Crash

The movie mirrors the ethnic and racial complexities of Los Angeles by presenting many intersecting plot lines. Neighbors think an Iranian-American shopkeeper (Shaun Toub) is an Arab so they apparently feel little remorse when they loot his store. The shopkeeper thinks a Chicano locksmith (Michael Peña) is a gang member who will bring his homies in to rob him blind once he finishes the repair job. The locksmith is in fact a hardworking family man and an exemplary father. A black police officer (Don Cheadle) has an affair with his Latina partner (Jennifer Esposito) but keeps on insulting her by not remembering what country she was born in and stopping just one step short of saying “you people all look the same to me.” Ryan, a white police officer (played by Matt Dillon, who was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor), arbitrarily stops what he at first thinks is a white woman and a black man in an expensive car. He conducts a humiliating, overly-thorough body search of the woman (who, he discovers, is actually a light-skinned African American) while her enraged husband looks on, unable to do anything because the police officer makes it clear what would happen if he tried. Later, we learn that Ryan is a compassionate man who is angry about his inability to help his dying father. Perversely, he expresses anger over his impotence by insulting blacks and making them feel powerless. Yet he partly redeems himself when he risks his life to rescue a woman from a horrible car accident – realizing part way through the rescue that the victim is the same black woman he had earlier body-searched.

Some critics have complained that Crash exaggerates the extent of racism in the United States. After all, we don’t often hear explicit racist comments in public. It seems to us, however, that these critics miss the point of the movie. The apparent intention of Crash — and in this it succeeds admirably – is to strip away all political correctness and tell us what people...