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Crash
EMAILPRINTLions Gate Films Inc.

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 39 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 478 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Crime | Drama | Mystery
Written by:
Paul Haggis (also story)
Robert Moresco
Directed by: Paul Haggis
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 6, 2005
DVD: September 6, 2005
Running Time: 100 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / Germany
Summary
RATING: R for language, sexual content and some violence
Starring Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner, Brendan Fraser, Terrence Dashon Howard, Ludacris, Thandie Newton, and Ryan Phillippe
A provocative, unflinching look at the complexities of racial tolerance in contemporary America. Diving headlong into the diverse melting pot of post-9/11 Los Angeles, this compelling urban drama tracks the volatile intersections of a multi-ethnic case of characters' struggles to overcome their fears as they careen in and out of one another's lives. (Lions Gate Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: In the Valley of Elah
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The New Yorker David Denby
Hyper-articulate and often breathtakingly intelligent and always brazenly alive. I think it's easily the strongest American film since Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River," though it is not for the fainthearted.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The stunning, must-see drama Crash is proof that words have not lost the ability to shock in our anesthetized society.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Not just one of the best Hollywood movies about race, but, along with "Collateral," one of the finest portrayals of contemporary Los Angeles life period.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Steve Davis
It's the most compelling American movie to come around in a long, long time.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Haggis writes with such directness and such a good ear for everyday speech that the characters seem real and plausible after only a few words. His cast is uniformly strong; the actors sidestep cliches and make their characters particular.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
This is the rare American film really about something, and almost all the performances are riveting.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
What makes Crash so gripping--so terrifying in spots, so moving in others, and even a little funny at times--is how nothing happens as we think it will.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Crash fools around with chronology in a Tarantinoesque way that brings its story full circle. You could argue that as events, and people, merge, Haggis' spiky screenplay (cowritten with Bobby Moresco) gets to be, quite simply, too much.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The acting is dynamite, notably by Dillon and Newton in their shocking second encounter. Despite its preachy moments, the film is a knockout.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Like Robert Altman's "Short Cuts," it is an all-star fresco, but the stars--none of whom carries the movie--get to play the kind of morally ambivalent, sometimes unlikable parts that big-name actors usually avoid.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Flaws are outweighed by Crash's intricate construction and intelligent.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Life's an exhilarating and often dangerous ride, and its accidents can yield good and bad things. Anticipation of the bad keeps us watching Crash, to be sure, but so does hope of the good.
Read Full Review >Empire Simon Braund
A haunting, perceptive and uncompromising examination of controversial subject matter, expertly written and directed by Paul Haggis and characterised by excellent performances from its starry cast.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Pivots on the characters' racism and xenophobia, playing tricks with our own biases and ultimately justifying an extravagant array of coincidences and surprises.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Ken Tucker
It's a film you won't stop thinking about, arguing over, debating, after the lights come up.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Unfortunately, the running time is too short for us to get to know, or care about, the characters in a way that would make the film's themes strike a responsive chord.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Never reaches the heights of "Short Cuts" or "Magnolia" -- two multi-story films that clearly provided inspiration -- but it's a thoughtful road trip well worth taking.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
The result is a film where blisteringly naturalistic drama bumps up against sentimentally arch melodrama (that's the biggest collision in Crash). Haggis showed the same tendency in his script for "Million Dollar Baby," yet there it was better hidden under a simpler narrative. Here, the tendency has gotten magnified right along with his thematic ambitions.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufmann
Ultimately, Crash succeeds in spite of itself. Its color war starts to feel obvious and schematic. Its coincidences and clichés become like a pileup on the 405 freeway, but there it is -- you find yourself rubbernecking and can't manage to look away.
Variety Todd McCarthy
The tense drama eventually becomes off-putting when it becomes clear almost every scene hinges on an unpleasant or ugly racial interaction.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Crash can't rise from the ashes of its pessimism.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Its characters come straight from the assembly line of screenwriting archetypes, and too often they act in ways that archetypes, rather than human beings, do. You can feel its creator shuttling them here and there on the grid of greater LA, pausing portentously between each move.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Haggis has made a safe picture. It is familiar enough that it slips easily into our film-watching faculty without any fuss, yet his handling of it--his muscular belief in what he is doing--makes us hope that his next screenplay will be a bit less safe.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Haggis, who wrote the fine adapted screenplay for "Million Dollar Baby," embeds Crash's script so deeply in allegory that every revelation feels manipulative and programmatic, in spite of some terrific individual scenes and performances.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Rather than feel reductively schematic, the film overall seems vividly complex and provocative in the true sense of the word -- it challenges viewers to reflect and discuss, rather than surrender to knee-jerk reactions.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Full of well-observed supporting riffs, Crash might've accumulated more frisson had it cast a clearer eye on how social tension actually plays.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A well-intentioned but obvious, often clumsy picture.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Peter Debruge
Almost certain to polarize audiences, this bit of emotional agitprop plays like a watered-down "Short Cuts" or "Magnolia" with a shrill, one-note message: We're all a little bit racist.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Concludes in a shower of ashes, which is fitting because this movie is a billowing bonfire of ugly human behavior. Rarely have there been so many characters in need of timeouts, cold showers or house arrests.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
It's too bad that the movie induces eyeball-rolling almost as much as it does armrest-clutching.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
It might even have been a landmark film about race relations had its aura of blunt realism not been dispelled by a toxic cloud of dramaturgical pixie dust.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
So what kind of a movie is Crash? A frustrating movie: full of heart and devoid of life; crudely manipulative when it tries hardest to be subtle; and profoundly complacent in spite of its intention to unsettle and disturb.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
Any glimpse of emotional honesty comes courtesy of the actors, who manage to do a credible job despite the material.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
An ambitious, intense, but overdetermined exploration of the varieties of ethnic intolerance.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
These interlocking stories don't move along as swiftly or as urgently as they should, and much of the dialogue thumps along on square wheels.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
In the end, Crash lacks a cumulative impact. It takes audiences to new places, but we've all been to similar places, and we walk out knowing no more than we did walking in.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
New York critics have anointed Crash in advance as the Second Coming, but it's just another over-ambitious first movie.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
The result is a hybrid of "Falling Down" and "Short Cuts" without the iconic central character of the former or the latter's clear-eyed humanism.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Greg Wilson
I have seen it before. I saw it when I saw "Magnolia", and "Traffic", and "Grand Canyon."
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 478 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Mike C gave it a2:
Crash is a boring drama that lacks any empathy whatsoever. Whats the theme supposed to be? That at the end of the day, everyone's a little bit racist? The fact that this won best picture is a joke, look elsewhere for a good drama.
Keith P gave it a10:
I like Crash. I don't care what anyone says. I am surprised that it won Best picture, but I still think it's a great movie. I give it an A+.
K P gave it a7:
I found this movie a bit cliche and preachy with regard to the racism and discrimination themes. But nevertheless, it had some nice moments. Some moments of real heart. Solid performances all around. Not sure I'd give Best Picture, but it's a solid film.
Juno m gave it a0:
I'm disgusted with how thus film thinks its saying something. Its about racists not racism. It just won an oscar because it dealt with something heavy. If it says something light it comes off as important just because its about something that controversial. Its just about people who realize its nor such a bad world afterall. And all the epiphany bullsh**. Horrible excuse of a shi**y message. Acting was nothing special. Whats stunning about thus film is the small di** it posses.
Michael M gave it a6:
I once read a review that said something to the effect of If this film's confrontations of racial injustices is eye opening to you, where have you been for the last fifty years? Spot on. This film is fine, but nothing new, and very contrived. The Slate and SF Chronicle quotes above say it well.
Jennifer B gave it a10:
The best movie I have ever seen. It's been 3 years since I first watched it, and I still get goose bumps!!!
jess s gave it a10:
A brilliant gripping film about race and how it can effect peoples lives. one of the most compelling films i have ever seen, truely amazing how the film is peiced together an intelligent, gripping brilliant film that even if it isn't your taste of film should be watched to learn something about today's society. a breathtakingly beautiful film.
