Crash

NewsdayVerne Gay

Gritty, jarring, profane and smartly produced.

Kansas City StarAaron Barnhart

Thanks to the fact that Starz is pay cable and can say and show pretty much whatever it wants, this show ramps up the dramatic tension quickly and effectively.

The New York TimesGinia Bellafante

The show, the first original drama series made for Starz, is hardly the most original depiction of Los Angeles, but Crash has a noirish appeal, and ambitions to tell a big story.

Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan

The show clearly wants to say something complicated about race and class in Los Angeles, but a number of the situations and characters on the show feel like situations and people we’ve seen before (starting with the movie that lends the series its name).

LA WeeklyRobert Abele

I’ll come back to Crash the TV show, but for now, the acting doesn’t exactly induce gaper’s block.

TV GuideMatt Roush

Crash doesn't burn so much as it simmers. It's provocative and intriguing, but leaves you wondering if the whole setup might not simply work better as a movie.

Baltimore SunDavid Zurawik

Not surprisingly, Crash, the TV series, does not measure up very well against the film in terms of atmosphere and acting.

Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall

It's an hour of unpleasant yet bland people occasionally bumping into each other and saying racially provocative things.

PopMattersCynthia Fuchs

At once schematic and preachy, it never indicates the stakes--either for its “diverse” players or for you.

New York MagazineJohn Leonard

Although slickly made with a nod to noir between sermonettes, Crash features far too much Dennis Hopper as a drug-addled music producer.

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen

They're a largely unlikable lot of crooked cops, adulterers and Hopper's long-winded, nutso music mogul. It's one thing to spend a movie with these characters, but it's quite another to tune in for 13 weeks.

Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert

Crash tries too hard, and fails hard too.

SalonHeather Havrilesky

The new drama Crash struggles mightily to appear slick and sophisticated and special, but the whole elaborate mess is just as leaden and obvious as the Oscar-winning movie upon which it's based.

Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray

A series that's as lead-footed as the original. But much, much longer.

Hollywood ReporterRay Richmond

The racial fire is oddly muted, the characters disturbingly undefined, the interaction frustratingly nondescript. The truth is, I'm not really sure what this show is supposed to be other than chaotic and boorish

San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman

Sure, it's got some ethically challenged cops, some overt racism, some faux hot sex and what looks to be a lot of money spent on filming on the streets of Los Angeles, but the writing is surprisingly nondescript, the acting rudimentary and the first hour ends with nothing much in the way of movement.

Entertainment WeeklyLeah Greenblatt

The film's episodic, interwoven tales of race relations in L.A. become a swampy mess of ludicrous dialogue, disconnected characters, and offensively stupid plotting.

VarietyBrian Lowry

Messy at best, the two-episode premiere suffers from wildly uneven performances, beginning with Dennis Hopper at his manic worst.