Crash

Directed by
Paul Haggis

Writing credits
(WGA)
Paul Haggis (story)
Paul Haggis (screenplay)
Robert Moresco (screenplay) (as Bobby Moresco)

Release Date:
6 May 2005 (USA)

Genre:
Crime | Drama

Cast :
* Rick Cabot

Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser) is the white District Attorney of Los Angeles who manipulates racial politics in order to further his career. He and his wife Jean are carjacked by Anthony and Peter, both of whom are black. Fearing a loss of support in the black community as the election approaches, Rick arranges for his assistant to blackmail Detective Graham Waters, who is black, into testifying against a white cop whom Graham thinks is innocent in order to create a press event which will reassure voters of Cabot's racial sensitivity. It is hinted he may be having an affair with his black assistant.

* Jean Cabot

Jean Cabot (Sandra Bullock) is Rick's wife, whose racial prejudices escalate after she and her husband experience carjacking. When Daniel Ruiz (a Mexican-American locksmith) changes the locks to her house, she insists that the locks be changed again the following morning in fear that Ruiz is keeping an extra copy of their house key. At the end of the film, following an accident in her home, she realizes that the person who is the kindest and most helpful to her is María, her Hispanic maid, while her snobby friends are too busy with shallow pursuits to help in her time of need. She confesses to Maria that she considers her to be her closest friend.

* Anthony

Anthony (Ludacris) is an African American inner-city car thief who steals vehicles for a chop shop owner. Anthony is very vocal about the racist and stereotypical views others hold to blacks despite, in many ways, conforming to these stereotypes. At one point in the film he justifies his actions by claiming he would never hurt another black person. However, Anthony tells Peter to shoot a black man, Cameron, after they try to carjack his car and nearly gets him shot by the police after a chase. To his surprise, Cameron does not turn him in to the officers, but he tells Anthony, "You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself." Towards the end of the movie, Anthony steals a van which was full of trafficked people from South East Asia. He refers to these immigrants disparagingly as Chinamen, but when the owner of the chop shop offers him $500 per head for the immigrants with the intention of selling them on, Anthony refuses. Instead, he lets them out onto the Asian district of LA in the last scene of the movie and gives them all of the money that is in his pocket – $40.

* Peter Waters

Peter Waters (Larenz Tate) is Anthony's friend and partner in crime. He is also Detective Waters' younger brother. Like Anthony, he is black, but he humorously scoffs at Anthony's paranoia over racism. He also likes the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and country music. Peter is shot to death by Officer Hansen, who picks him up in the Valley, hours after their failed carjacking of Cameron's Lincoln Navigator and mistakenly shoots him after assuming he is drawing a gun during an escalating argument. In reality he was reaching into his pocket to show the cop a figure of Saint Christopher, identical to the one Officer Hansen had stuck to his dashboard. As he is dying, he has an expression of shock/surprise and holds out his hand to reveal he had no weapon.

* Detective Graham Waters

Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) is an African-American detective in the Los Angeles Police Department. He is disconnected from his poor family, which consists of his drug-addicted mother and criminal younger brother. He promises his mother that he will find his younger brother, but he is preoccupied with a case concerning a suspected racist white cop who shot a corrupt black cop. Flanagan (William Fichtner), an assistant to the district attorney, offers Graham the chance to further his career in exchange for withholding evidence that could possibly have helped the white cop's case. Flanagan also tries to convince Graham that the black community needs to see the black cop as a hero, and not as a drug dealer, as Graham suspects that he may have been. Graham is both offended and opposed, and is ready to storm out, when Flanagan mentions that there is a warrant out for Graham's brother's arrest, and that this is his third felony, which carries a life sentence in the state of California. Graham makes a very difficult personal decision to withhold evidence and possibly corrupt a case in order to have the District Attorney forget about his brother. That brother is eventually revealed to be Peter, the hitchhiker who is killed by Officer Hansen.

* Ria

Ria (Jennifer Esposito) is a Latina detective, as well as Graham's partner and girlfriend. When a phone call from Graham's mother interrupts his sexual romp with Ria, she becomes upset with Graham for being disrespectful and subsequently racially insensitive towards Hispanics. She is shown to be racist toward Asians, as she criticizes an Asian woman's driving.

* Officer Tommy Hansen

Officer Tommy Hansen (Ryan Phillippe) is a Los Angeles police officer who, after observing his partner Officer John Ryan pull over Cameron Thayer and Christine Thayer and sexually molest Christine, requests a change of partner because of feelings of guilt over the incident. His supervisor, Lieutenant Dixon, tells him he will transfer him if he claims his "uncontrollable flatulence" requires him to drive a one-man car. The next day, after he presumably files the request, he is reassigned to a single-man patrol car. While on patrol he joins a police chase of Cameron Thayer, who was being car-jacked, but fought off his carjackers and is fleeing the scene with one carjacker still in the car. After driving into a dead-end, Cameron, now resentful of the LAPD, confronts the police officers. Tommy jumps in front of Cameron and tries to convince him to stand down to avoid a confrontation which could possibly result in Cameron's death. He then vouches for Cameron, stating that he is a friend of his, and lets him off with a "harsh warning." Tommy is later seen driving in his car when he picks up Peter Waters, who is hitch-hiking. He ultimately reveals his own insecurities with other races (African-Americans in particular) through his treatment of Peter Waters and how he quickly dismisses Waters' attempts to compare similarities between them. He pulls over when he assumes that Peter is laughing at him, and tells him to get out of the car. As Peter reaches into his pocket, Tommy wrongly assumes that Peter is reaching for a hidden gun, and shoots him dead. He removes the dead Peter from the car to cover up the incident. We later see Peter, who is the brother of Graham Waters, dead in the grass near where Tommy pulled over. Finally, we see Tommy walking away from his burning car wearing a pair of latex gloves, trying to conceal his involvement in the shooting.

* Officer John Ryan

Officer John Ryan (Matt Dillon) is a bigoted white police officer who physically molests Cameron's wife, Christine, under the pretense of searching for a weapon after pulling over their vehicle and accusing them of endangerment due to Christine performing fellatio on Cameron while he was driving. Meanwhile, Ryan is trying to get help for his father, who possibly suffers from prostate cancer but has been diagnosed with a bladder infection, despite the ineffectiveness of treatment. His anger manifests in prejudice, as is evident when he exhibits a racist attitude towards an HMO employee preventing his father from seeing an out of network, non-HMO physician. His racial prejudices seem to stem from the destructive impact that local affirmative action policies had on his father's business. After Hansen requests solo patrol, Ryan is partnered with a Hispanic-American with whom he seems to get along. Ryan later puts his own life on the line to save Christine, the woman he molested earlier, from certain death in a fiery car wreck.

* Lieutenant Dixon

Lieutenant Dixon (Keith David) is Officers Ryan and Hansen's shift Lieutenant. An African American, Dixon believes that the LAPD is a racist organization that he personally had to work extra hard in to earn a ranking position. When Hansen requests to change partners, Dixon refuses stating that doing so because of Officer Ryan's racism will reflect poorly on their unit. He claims that going on record about supervising racist officers such as Ryan can be a move that will cost both Hansen and Dixon their jobs. In order to get away from Officer Ryan, he then suggests that Officer Hansen ride in a solo car claiming to have a condition of "uncontrollable flatulence."

* Cameron Thayer

Cameron Thayer (Terrence Howard) is a black television director. He witnesses Officer Ryan molesting his wife and later realises that the producers of his television show propagate racist stereotypes about black people. In an emotional moment, he fights off Anthony and Peter when they try to steal his car, takes away Anthony's gun, and argues fiercely with armed white police officers. Just when it is very likely that he will be shot to death, Hansen intervenes on his behalf and prevents any outbreak of violence. After being let off with a warning, Cameron then proceeds to let Anthony go and even gives him his gun back. At the scene of Hansen's burning car (to eliminate evidence of a murder), he is able to find contentment and reconnnects with his wife.

* Christine Thayer

Christine Thayer (Thandie Newton) is Cameron's wife. She is molested by Ryan after she and Cameron are pulled over for her giving oral sex to her husband while he was driving them home. She becomes furious with her husband because he does not act to defend her. The two insult each other over their upbringings – as both Cameron and Christine have grown up in more privileged environments than many other African Americans. The next day she is trapped in an overturned car due to a car accident and, by a twist of fate, Officer Ryan is the man who willingly endangers himself to save her life.

* Daniel Ruiz

Daniel Ruiz (Michael Peña) is a Mexican-American locksmith who faces discrimination from Jean and others because he looks like a gangbanger to them, when he is actually a devoted family man. After Anthony and Peter steal Jean and Rick's car, Daniel comes over and changes the locks on their home. Daniel seeks a safe environment for his young daughter, Lara, who had a bullet go through her window in their previous home. That is why he moved to a safer neighborhood and enrolled her in a private school. Near the beginning he gives Lara an invisible "cloak" that he says will protect her should someone try to shoot at her. Farhad shoots at Lara and Daniel but they escape unhurt, because the gun contains blanks chosen by Dorri earlier in the film. However, Lara believes that this is due to the protective powers of the "cloak."

* Farhad

Farhad (Shaun Toub) is a Persian store owner who is afraid for his safety. He is depicted as frustrated by the racial harassment he experiences in the United States (despite being an American citizen), as well as deterred by difficulties with speaking English. To protect his store - the only thing his family has - he goes to a gun shop and attempts to buy a gun. The gun store owner quickly becomes frustrated with Farhad's conversation with his daughter Dorri in Persian, leading to harassment from the owner, who believes that Persians are Arabs and therefore, terrorists, one of these comments being "Yo, Osama, plan the jihad on your own time." The owner refuses to sell Farhad a gun, but finally sells the gun to Farhad's daughter after being cryptic and lecherous about which bullets she needs.

The store run by Farhad and his wife Shereen (Marina Sirtis) has a door which will not close properly, so they call a locksmith, Daniel. Farhad's suspicion of others is compounded by his difficulty understanding English; he does not heed Daniel's warning that his shop door needs replacing, believing Daniel intends to cheat him, and as a result suffers a break-in. Shereen reacts to the slurs written on the walls of the store: "They think we're Arab. When did Persian become Arab?" Blaming Daniel for the invasion and racially-motivated destruction of his store, and angered by the insurance company rejecting his claim on the grounds of negligence, he confronts Daniel at his house, wielding his gun. Farhad fires at Daniel but accidentally shoots Daniel's daughter Lara, to the horror of both Daniel and Farhad. Fortunately, unknowingly to Farhad, the gun contains blanks. Farhad leaves without further incident, later telling his daughter that his "farishta," his guardian angel, protected himself and his family.

* Dorri

Dorri (Bahar Soomekh) is Farhad's daughter, and is more acclimated than her father to American culture. She purposefully purchases blanks after her father has upset the man at the counter in the gun store. She is constantly trying to calm her father down during his emotional outbursts. She is also an employee at the hospital; she escorts Graham and his mother to Peter's body after it is discovered in a field.

* Jake Flanagan

Jake Flanagan (William Fichtner) is an aide to Rick who tries to talk Graham into accepting a corrupt deal. He holds a complex viewpoint that is not blatantly racist, yet he makes bigoted remarks in a conversation with Detective Waters. He argues that the black community needs to see a deceased black cop as a hero, even if he was corrupt. It appears that Flanagan is interested in the political aspects of the case as the DA's office will look better in the eyes of the black community for convicting an officer who has a troubled racial history of a crime that he is partially guilty of. When Graham refuses to play, even if offered a promotion in exchange, Flanagan subtly mentions that Graham's brother has had a warrant issued for his arrest, and that perhaps this was a mistake. Flanagan implies that if Graham will do what the District Attorney wants, the case against his brother could be buried. Graham appears to accept the deal.

* Shaniqua Johnson

Shaniqua Johnson (Loretta Devine) is the HMO representative for the insurance company used by Officer Ryan's father. At the end of the film, her car collides with another and she begins to yell at the other driver about "speaking American."

* Choi Jin Gui

Choi Jin Gui is a Korean man who gets run over by Anthony and Peter. He was selling illegal immigrants to another man at a café where Officer Ryan and Shaniqua were having a phone conversation. Near the end of the film, Anthony finds the illegal immigrants and sets them free.

* Kim Lee

Wife of Choi Jin Gui, who goes to the hospital to see him and gets told to cash the cheque he had straight away. Kim Lee, at the start of the film, is involved in a car-crash with Graham's car and has an argument with Ria, who was in the car with Graham.

* Lucien

Lucien (Dato Bakhtadze) runs a chop shop in which Anthony and Peter try to sell cars. The two thieves first try to sell him the Lincoln Navigator they stole from the Cabots, but he refuses to accept it because they ran over a Korean man and he believes the crime will be traced back to him. This suggests that the various other characters who had committed crimes could be caught, although this is never confirmed. He is later shown to have his own racist beliefs when Anthony arrives with a van (belonging to the man that he and Peter ran over) full of Asian illegal immigrants. Lucien tries to buy the immigrants as workers, claiming they can be sold for an easy profit.

Original Sound Track :
1. If I... - KansasCali
2. Plastic Jesus - Billy Idol
3. Are You Beautiful - Chris Pierce
4. Free - Civilization
5. Hey God - Randy Coleman
6. Take The Pain Away - Al Berry
7. Problems - Move.meant
8. Arrival - Pale 3/Beth Hirsch
9. Acedia (The Noonday Demon) - Quinn
10. Save Me - Bird York
11. Afraid - Quincy
12. Maybe Tomorrow - Stereophonics

Plot :
A Brentwood housewife and her DA husband. A Persian store owner. Two police detectives who are also lovers. An African-American television director and his wife. A Mexican locksmith. Two car-jackers. A rookie cop. A middle-aged Korean couple They all live in Los Angeles. And during the next 36 hours, they will all collide Challenging and thought-provoking, Lions Gate Films CRASH takes 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 cast of characters struggles to overcome their fears as they careen in and out of one another lives. In the gray area between black and white, victim and aggressor, there are no easy answers. Funny, powerful, and always unpredictable, CRASH boldly reminds us of the importance of tolerance as it ventures beyond color lines and uncovers the truth of our shared humanity.

Pictures :