Movie review

I rented Crash last night. Before it started, Maria asked me if I had heard anything about it, and I told her not really, but that I had heard that the theme had some sort of racial undertones. Two minutes into it, Maria said "Racial undertones?" because by that point, we had realized that the whole point of the movie was to throw blatant racial stereotypes and racial tension in your face. The movie takes place in L.A. and follows the intersecting stories of numerous characters from different backgrounds, where everyone is prejudiced, and no one is good or bad. I liked the movie, but a little more subtlety would have gone a long way. I'll give the movie the benefit of the doubt by assuming that the over-the-top drama of the stereotyped characters and plots was deliberate, because if it wasn't intentional, it would have been way too much- too unbelievable and ridiculous. Overall, the movie was very intense, especially the scene with Matt Dillon's sleazy cop molesting a woman in front of her husband, but certain other scenes come across as forced and phony, like Sandra Bullock as the rich white bitch hugging her latina housekeeper. I have to commend the movie for taking on a topic that everyone knows about and no one talks about, racism in the United States. It was fun to see the different performances of the large cast, which included everyone from Ludacris to Tony Danza.