The Movie Crash
I don’t normally review English movies coz they don’t affect me emotionally, as much as Indians movies do. Reviewing for me is more an emotion driven act than a critical, objective exercise.
Crash is one of the few English movies, out of the tons I’ve watched this year, that really touched an emotional chord.
CRASH- ’’Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other.’’…This is the tagline for the movie. This movie is set in Los Angeles and explores tense racial relations amongst the various communities that exist in LA. Crash is an ensemble piece in which the stories of different characters intersect and intertwine…kinda like Tom Cruise’s Magnolia. Each of the sub-stories involves racism, which is the central theme of the film. Other than racism, the film also highlights the alienation and isolation of the individual in a big city. The title “Crash” comes from the fact that the movie is full of car crashes and people colliding into one another, which, as one of the central characters in the movie states, seems to have become the only way people connect with each other today.
PLOT-
It is hard to outline a plot here. There is so much going on in the movie at all times, so many different characters, so many plot twists. You have Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser playing a white, upwardly mobile couple who are victims of a car-jacking, at the hands of a couple of black guys, further increasing their prejudices. You have the black car-jackers, Ludacris (the hip hop star) and Larenz Tate, who are quite unrepentant about what they’ve done, who feel as long as they are not robbing their own community they are “Aw..iight”. Then there is a Korean guy who’s run down by these car jackers while they are speeding away. As the audience, you are tempted to feel sorry for the Korean guy, but maybe he’s not a victim after all…maybe he’s involved in crimes even greater than stealing. There is Matt Dillon, as a frustrated, stressed traffic cop, who pulls
Crash is one of the few English movies, out of the tons I’ve watched this year, that really touched an emotional chord.
CRASH- ’’Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other.’’…This is the tagline for the movie. This movie is set in Los Angeles and explores tense racial relations amongst the various communities that exist in LA. Crash is an ensemble piece in which the stories of different characters intersect and intertwine…kinda like Tom Cruise’s Magnolia. Each of the sub-stories involves racism, which is the central theme of the film. Other than racism, the film also highlights the alienation and isolation of the individual in a big city. The title “Crash” comes from the fact that the movie is full of car crashes and people colliding into one another, which, as one of the central characters in the movie states, seems to have become the only way people connect with each other today.
PLOT-
It is hard to outline a plot here. There is so much going on in the movie at all times, so many different characters, so many plot twists. You have Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser playing a white, upwardly mobile couple who are victims of a car-jacking, at the hands of a couple of black guys, further increasing their prejudices. You have the black car-jackers, Ludacris (the hip hop star) and Larenz Tate, who are quite unrepentant about what they’ve done, who feel as long as they are not robbing their own community they are “Aw..iight”. Then there is a Korean guy who’s run down by these car jackers while they are speeding away. As the audience, you are tempted to feel sorry for the Korean guy, but maybe he’s not a victim after all…maybe he’s involved in crimes even greater than stealing. There is Matt Dillon, as a frustrated, stressed traffic cop, who pulls