Race relations take a bumpy ride in 'Crash'

Crash

A dozen characters come at America's race-relations issues from all angles in this drama.

Rated R for language, sexual content and some violence; 100 minutes.

Opening today at area theaters.

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Paul Haggis, who wrote the screenplay for “Million Dollar Baby,” bites off a big topic for his directorial debut, “Crash” - the state of race relations in Los Angeles, 2005.

The bite is bigger than he can handle, ultimately, but he does provide plenty for us and a swarm of top actors to chew on.

The story, written by Haggis and Bobby Moresco, follows a daisy-chain of characters in L.A. in a 36-hour period just before Christmas. It starts with Graham (Don Cheadle), an emotionally contained LAPD detective checking out a crime scene. The story circles back to Graham's brother Peter (Larenz Tate), a carjacker working with his pal Anthony (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges). They nab an SUV belonging to Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser), the district attorney, and his shrill suburbanite wife Jean (Sandra Bullock).

Jean has all the locks in her house changed, which introduces Daniel (Michael Pe–a), a Mexican-born locksmith trying to keep his 5-year-old daughter safe. Daniel is assigned to fix a lock at a convenience store owned by an angry Iranian (Shaun Toub), who buys a gun to protect his store. Also in the mix: a veteran cop, Ryan (Matt Dillon), who offends his rookie partner (Ryan Phillippe) when he pulls over a wealthy black couple, a TV director (Terrence Howard) and his attractive wife (Thandie Newton).

Haggis creates intriguing characters with only a few strokes of dialogue. He weaves them together to create a view of Los Angeles as a complex web of relationships, people who are tied across racial and class differences - such as Jean and her kindly Latina maid, or Ryan's battles with an African-American HMO employee (Loretta Devine) who holds the key to his dad's prescription fees. But those differences pull at the connections between us, creating tension that is sometimes ready to snap.

Haggis opens up little spaces for his actors to shine. You expect greatness from Cheadle and Howard, and they deliver; more surprising are against-type performances by Dillon and Phillippe as conflicted cops, and a two-minute gem by Keith David as their superior officer - an African American who expertly, and cynically, squelches a potential racial argument before it starts.

Some of the stories don't work as well, like the sad melodrama involving Graham's drug-addicted mom (Beverly Todd) or Jean's well-upholstered loneliness. But when “Crash” works, it illuminates the perils and the hope of America's multicultural mix.

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