Don Cheadle's character sets the tone of the movie when he comments on a car crash he's just been in: in most other cities, you walk past a stranger and brush up against a coat. But in LA, you just zoom past other people in your car. No one touches each other; it's all isolation and glass and steel.

So people have to crash into each other just to feel something. In this movie, characters "crash" using the vehicles of fear and protection from fear, anger and restraint, racism and the experience of another's culture. The result is a universe in which everything is random but nothing is random at all; everything matters.

Crash is powerful and disturbing, overstimulating, consoling, and raw (expect to have the language of the movie jolt you). Even the amazing actors are overshadowed by the larger impact that this movie perpetrates on the viewer, purposely jolting the audience into recognition of hatred and redemption. Not a story to easily forget.

by Jessica Roseberry