The Film Crash

pretty much guaranteed to be shocked and uncomfortable, I know we were and we weren't expecting the tirade of abuse, one of the more uncomfortable aspects of this scene is that it's from a white man to a Persian, whom he thinks is actually an Iraqi. A very disturbing scene, and something that the movie is all about. The abuse doesn't just stop at the white American on Persian, it moves to Latino against Chinese, Chinese against black, black against black, black against white, white against Chinese, and so on. One of the best moments of the movie is at the beginning as two black guys come out of an uptown restaurant in a very white neighbourhood and one begins to rant about how badly they've been treated. "The waitress treated us like dirt, assuming that we're black we wouldn't tip her." he roughly said, and his friend turns to him, "well how much did you tip her?", "That's not the point". 

There are some poorer aspects to the movie though, I felt a couple of the scenes were presented in quite a contrived manner, and instead of events leading to them being quite explainable or understandable, they felt strained and stretched. A perfect example of how this could be avoided was with the second Newton-Dillon scene, no explanation, no lead up, the event had just happened and the important thing was the story that unfolded before you and the aftermath. That's real life, often things happen and there's not a need to overly explain the lead up. 

The movie is telling us that if we take some time to get to know the people around us, perhaps make conversation and don't stereotype them, we may just get along a little better. Lives might even be saved. Don't make the mistake that it's all happy though, it isn't. Even those who think they have made the connections already, haven't done so on anything more than a superficial level.Overall the messages are strong, uncompromising and often quite bleak. Do not make a mistake, this is real life and not a nice fluffy bunny tale. Despite some moments that are a little contrived, there are a surprising amount of exceptional performances to be seen and the story gives you a real kick in the head about how we really should be as people. Thoroughly recommended.