Crash

Crash is a movie that depicts the casts struggle in racism and in determining between what is right and wrong. Throughout the movie you are able to see some characters make the transition from bad to good, but others make the opposite transition and go from good to bad. Examples of characters that make the transition from bad to good are Anthony and Jean Cabot. An example of a character that makes the transition from good to bad is Officer Hansen. Many of the characters face outside forces that affect their mood and how they go throughout their day. For instance, Officer John Ryan is very racist and after an African American lady denies his sick father to see another doctor he takes it out on an innocent African American couple. This makes the viewers watching this movie feel bad that he has to take care of a sick father but also angry about how he inappropriately touches Christine. Almost every character at some point in the movie makes the audience feel opposite emotions for the choices they make.

The movie Crash focuses on the idea of moral implications. The movie shows people of all nationalities making the right and wrong choices, through their wrong choices the movie is telling us not to make the same wrong ones. The movie is showing and telling us to live at piece with the people around us and not to judge people by the color of their skin but instead on the things that make their character. The main moral statement that this movie is surrounded by is racism and how it is just not white people being racist towards African Americans, but it is Blacks against Chinese, Persians against Mexicans, and so on around the wheel.

The movie Crash is good story and is very credible through its externally observable truths. It is credible because it depicts things the way the really are. Although I think the movie takes depicting the racism a little extreme at times, I’m sure that it is pretty accurate to how things are in the bigger cities. If this movie was shot in North Dakota, I feel that the accuracy of the racism would be off because I have never seen anything like that while living here 19 years. The story of Crash is very interesting in its balance of suspense and action. The scene where two young black teens run of the Chinese man is very suspense full because at first you are unsure if he is still alive or not. A scene that shows good action is when there is a standoff between Cameron Thayer and the cops and Thayer keeps telling the cops to shoot him if they’re going to. The movie also uses characterization through dialogue. The characters reveal a great deal about themselves by what they say, do and how they act. By using characterization through dialogue, the director allows the audience to decide for themselves what they think about certain characters.

Although Crash doesn’t revolve very much around music, it does contain some moments of traveling music. When the two teens steal the Navigator they flip through the radio channels and land on a country song. When Anthony hears it he thinks the singer is talking about lynching black people but Peter thinks otherwise. Later in the movie Peter is picked up by Officer Hansen while hitch hiking for a ride. When Peter gets in the car country music is also providing the traveling music. So, although music is not a large part of the movie it does provide some traveling music in a couple of the scenes.

For the movie crash, the director used the star system approach to attempt to attract a large amount of moviegoers. I believe the director used many popular actors from many different diverse backgrounds in an attempt to attract people from different walks of life. By me not knowing this before I watched the movie, I was very surprised to see the amount of popular actors and actresses I knew and it kept me very interested while watching the movie. The director also casted the actors and actresses very well and put each actor in the role that was right for them. I feel that if the director would have not casted the actors and actresses so well the movie would not have been as successful as it was.

Director Paul Haggis is famous for creating a couple of the 007 movies which became big box office hits. In the movie Crash although I couldn’t find evidence of how much he was involved, I’m sure that Haggis supervised every step in the filmmaking process, selected the cast, found a suitable setting, and edited the final cut. I think this because after seeing his two 007 movies it would be hard to think otherwise. I feel that by Haggis deciding to show many scenes with racism I feel that he was trying to depict how racism is still a large part of our society in bigger cities. He also gains a lot of credibility by not beating around the bush and actually showing real life situations involving racism and prejudices. I also saw that Haggis used a subjective camera in many scenes in the movie to show the audience a visual and emotional point of view. I also feel that Haggis did a great job in selecting the cast and having each actor and actress play the role that fit them best. I feel that the toughest character to play would have been Officer John Ryan, if Haggis would have selected anyone besides Matt Dillion I don’t think the character would have been played as well.

I feel that the theme of the movie revolves around prejudices and racism towards all nationalities. Like I said earlier, I don’t feel it just focuses on one key one but instead on all the different types. Through this technique I think that the movie is more credible and makes the movie seem like it is real. I also believe that this film has a moral statement that it wants people to abide by. I feel that this statement is that we should not judge people by the color of their skin but instead by the things that show their character. The movie shows how the cast judges people on the color of their skin or their ethnic background, the director wants to show how this causes problems and how we should learn from other people’s wrong doings.

One thing I noticed from the beginning of the movie is how racy it was going to be. Although it was very racy, I give the director credit for depicting how life in the big cities around the US is actually like. I also noticed that you have to pay close attention to the whole movie because it is all tied together at the end. I feel that the director made the choice of tying the whole movie together at the end so the audience would pay attention to all the twists and turns the movie makes along the way. I like the director’s choice of tying all the characters in to each other in many of the different ways, I feel like this made the movie more visually appealing and interesting. The questions that still remain are as follow: Was Officer Hansen ever caught for murdering Peter? Did Christine ever forgive Officer Ryan for inappropriately touching her? And did Officer Ryan’s dad ever get to see a new doctor? The things that made this movie interesting to me is how each character seemed to make the change from good to bad or bad to good; with many going from bad to good. A scene that made me feel emotional is when Peter was shot by Officer Hansen when he tried to show him the hood ornament that was like Hansen’s. This made me feel emotional because throughout the whole movie Hansen was a good character that wasn’t racist or prejudice, but at the end he shot Peter because he thought he was pulling a gun on him. Overall I thought the movie was kind of hard to follow because it didn’t centralize around one character. I also feel that the main message and theme of the movie was very powerful and made the movie interesting.