Ralph's Movie Reviews: CRASH

Saturday, May 14, 2005

CRASH

Drama

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Don Cheadle: Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective Graham Waters
Jennifer Esposito: Ria, his girlfriend and partner
Brendan Fraser: Rick Cabot, LA District Attorney
Sandra Bullock: his wife Jean
Chris "Ludacris" Bridges: Anthony, a young black
Larenz Tate: Anthony’s friend Peter
Michael Pena: Latino locksmith Daniel
Matt Dillon: LAPD Officer Jack Ryan
Ryan Phillippe: Ryan's rookie partner Hanson Thomas
Terrence Howard: TV producer Cameron
Thandie Newton: his wife Christine
Shaun Toub: Farhad an Iranian immigrant shop owner
Bahar Soomekh: his daughter

REVIEW
Probably no other movie explores the subject of racism as deeply as this one. We get to see seven groups of people living in Los Angeles, and how everyone has their own prejudices and intolerances. How they handle them makes for interesting comparisons. The acting throughout is uniformly excellent.

CLASSIFICATION

for language, nudity and violence

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
Near the end of the movie, a fender bender occurs when one car rear-ends another. Both drivers get out of their cars which are still within a foot of each other. As they argue about whose fault it is, the camera angle changes to an overhead shot. The cars are now four feet apart.

P.S.
Never did figure out how the LAPD Internal Investigation fit into the whole scheme of things. Seems like an unnecessary diversion.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.