Spike Lee covered all of these topics back in 1989 with Do the Right Thing, and he actually did it... you know, good.
Crash
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Is it age appropriate?
About our ratings -
Is it any good?
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Common Sense says
Powerful look at racism, but too intense for kids.
Why We Rated This 
for Ages 15–16
What to watch out for
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Violence:
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Sex:
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Language:
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Consumerism:
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Drinking, drugs, & smoking:
What Parents Need to Know
This review of Crash was written by Cynthia Fuchs
Parents need to know that, as the film interrogates urban fears, violence, and racism, the language, particularly the use of racial epithets, is rough. The film also features several violent scenes, including a carjacking, a pedestrian hit by a car, a five-year-old child shot by a handgun (with her parents watching), and several car crashes. Policemen, detectives, district attorneys, and an insurance adjuster prove untrustworthy; characters steal cars, do drugs, drink, smoke cigarettes, and have sex (including implied oral sex in a car and a cop putting his hands on a woman's private parts, in front of her upset husband, under the guise of "patting her down.")
Families Can Talk About
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- Families can talk about the film's representations of racism, anger, and fearfulness, embodied and acted on by nearly every character. Families might also think about the ways that current urban and mass-mediated experiences lead to alienation and cultural divisions. Families might also discuss the several family situations, in particular, the five-year-old girl's trust in her caring father, and adult children trying to look after aging parents. How do family relationships affect your trust of others? How do some characters use aggression (verbal and physical) to establish their sense of identity?
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More on Crash
What’s the Story?
Sprawling and ambitious, episodic and contrived, CRASH weaves together a series of stories about post-9/11 fearfulness. The characters range and include L.A. detectives Graham (Don Cheadle) and his partner and lover, Ria (Jennifer Esposito), uniformed officers Ryan (Matt Dillon) and Thomas (Ryan Phillippe), petty thieves Anthony (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) and Peter (Larenz Tate), and TV director Cameron (Terrence Howard) and his wife Christine (Thandie Newton). All of them make assumptions about others, based on appearance and the distress they've suffered in their own lives. After a violent carjacking, well-to-do Jean (Sandra Bullock) turns on her D.A. husband (Brendan Fraser), then accuses their young locksmith of looking like an untrustworthy gangbanger. Later, locksmith Daniel (Michael Peña) comforts his terrified little girl, who can't forget the gunshots she remembers from their old neighborhood. Iranian shopkeeper Farhad (Shaun Toub) is also afraid, due to a robbery. His daughter Dorri (Bahar Soomekh) tries to calm him by purchasing a gun he can keep in a drawer. In each case, security is a fantasy -- in the face of random violence (or maybe karmic-payback), one can only hope to survive.
Is It Any Good?
Opening with the aftermath of a car wreck under investigation, this Best Picture Oscar-winner is plainly about loss. But the loss of what isn't immediately obvious. Each interaction seems a kind of collision. For example, Ryan's ailing father makes him anxious, and so he takes it out on Cameron and Christine, whom he finds having sex in their car. He's cruel, but they can't fight back: he's a cop. When Thomas suggests Ryan has crossed a line, the older cop defends himself by blaming the work: "Wait till you've been on the job a few more years. You think you know who you are; you have no idea."
Some violent encounters are actual crashes, minor and major, lending the movie a sort of stop-and-start rhythm. This structure is exacerbated by the awkward multi-culti casting. CRASH takes a "one-from-every-food-group" approach to race representation (including a mostly unseen Asian pedestrian hit by a car and dragged beneath). The movie seems geared toward those viewers who were surprised by the Rodney King video, that is, people who don't regularly deal with cultural collisions. For others, its machinations will grind.
Movie Details
Studio: Lionsgate, Director: Paul Haggis
Run time: 113 minutes
Theatrical release: 5/6/2005, DVD release: 9/6/2005
MPAA Rating: R for language, sexual content, some violence
Run time: 113 minutes
Theatrical release: 5/6/2005, DVD release: 9/6/2005
MPAA Rating: R for language, sexual content, some violence
Our Members Say
See 17 member reviews
Most Recent Reviews
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I rate this title on for age 16 and give it
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I rate this title iffy for age 15 and give it
- My concerns are:
- Excessive violence
- Inappropriate sexual content
- Inappropriate language
- My highlights are:
- Good role models
Briliiant, Bold, Brutal, Best-Picture Winner
This is a very good movie to watch. It powerfully deals with racism and the consequences of hate and discrimination. The preformances are fantastic and the story is great. Prents: althoguh you should let your kid watch this movie that teaches a good lesson about the negative consequences of racism it is quite dark, violnet, an, at times, sexual. A racist cop explictitly but non-graphically sexually assaults a woman of different race. There are many, many sotuations involving racial differences, moslty ending in harsh language, violence, or a sexual act. But parents, like I said, this is a good movie for your kids to watch in order to learn not to discriminate against others unlike yourself. Plus, the movie leaves you with a sense of hope, tranquility, and, overall, gentle resolution. Brilliant; bold; brutal.
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I rate this title off for age 12 and give it
Crash deals with Racism and has great movie.
Crash is from Writer-Director Paul Haggis and brings a great script and acting to an intense subject matter but never goes too soft on the audience or too rough. Another great oscar-winner.
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I rate this title iffy for age 15 and give it
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I rate this title on and give it
Best look at racism in US
My 16 year old daughter cannot stop talking about this movie - and taking her friends to see it. The intersecting lives of the many races and cultures of Los Angeles portray the subtle and harmful ways that racism affects everyone. Characters are real - they have positive and negative qualities so no one is a "good guy" or a "bad guy" - all are trying to make sense of the world and deal with their prejudices in one way or another. Racism is not simple; it runs deeply in our society and this is the first film I've seen that doesn't shy away from showing us how complex and deeply human the issue is.
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I rate this title iffy and give it
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I rate this title on and give it
Its necessary...
hits on a lot of good issues that you need to talk about with your kids. There might be some violence, bad language, etc. but at least its presented in a way that makes you question the context, reasons, etc.
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I rate this title iffy and give it
For what it's worth, I think that it's a good movie for teenagers...
I watched Crash twice, once by myself (my husband was in Iraq) and once with him before allowing my children, 12 and 15, to view it. It is, without a doubt, one of the most intelligently made movies on racism ever. Great ensenble cast and the situations are so unbelievably nuanced and well-scripted. Yes, the language is a little raw but my kids hear the same stuff in school every day. There is one sex scene but it's very tastefully handled; actually, no sexual body parts are displayed at all, a rarity in modern film making ;-) When it was over, I bet we spent an hour going over the situations that were presented, talking about what the characters' motivations were and how they could have handled the situations better. When Matt Dillon confronts the HMO administrator, why does she react the way she does? Well, maybe because he insulted her over the phone the night before. Sandra Bullock's character was a great study in the typical suburban housewife who undergoes a change of heart. Your heart breaks for Don Cheadle, a cop with a drug-addicted mother and a carjacking brother. Both characters are portrayed sympathetically and there is no stereotyping, another rarity... This is a GREAT movie and it deserves to be seen by everyone who is concerned about the direction of our society. Like me, you may want to view it first to determine your tolerance for the language used. Another reason to watch it first is because there is so much content there. You need to see it without interruption so you can wrap your head around the complex moral and ethical situations presented. There is no portrayed violence whatsoever. The one scene where there is a shooting occurs inside a car and you see it happening from the outside. The other thing that I found really unusual was the score of the movie. Instead of the heavy metal, hip-hop or rock and roll music that you would expect, there is a beautiful, Enya-like score laid over the really emotionally intense scenes. My daughter asked me to check and see if it was available on CD, it was that good. I almost gave it an On rating but know that would be stretching my credibility. However, I felt that the positives of this movie far-outweighed the negatives and give children so much more food for thought than the typical dreck that Hollywood keeps shovelling in their direction. We've pretty much stopped going to the movies because it's such a wasteland out there that I don't feel like gambling $40-50 on an evening of pseudo-entertainment anymore.
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I rate this title iffy and give it
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I rate this title on and give it
Finally America!
It it excellent and it's about time that all can see how things really are, and it gives opportunity for discussion.
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I rate this title iffy and give it
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I rate this title iffy and give it
Heh heh, I forgot to write a review the first time....
Anyways, I just now noticed that I hadn't written an actaul review, so here it is: Crash goes absolutely beyond 5 stars. This movie is so good that I watched it four nights in a row. and every single time, the experience was that of such a great movie like that of which I had never seen. Crash can bring you almost to tears and then make you want to leap with relief and happinees a second later. Words cannot simply describe how excellent of a movie this is. My money on movie tickets were well spent, as was buying it as soon as it came out. Plus not to mention, Crash won Best Picture, which, if you had actually seen it, would have come as no surprise. I have to wrap this up, because I literally could go on forever. All I can say is, this is the absolutely best movie I have ever seen along with The Green Mile. Kudos to you Crash. Kudos.
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I rate this title iffy and give it
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I rate this title iffy and give it
A good lesson to teach children
This movie has a good lesson to teach, thus it should be shown to children who are mature enough to handle it's material. It is sad and contains adult material, but in the end it is through context that shows chidlren what is right and what is wrong.
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I rate this title on and give it
Very Intense and very very good
One thing I liked about this movie is you were never really sure where it was going. Good guys, became bad, bad became good. The acting was superb by all and there was no slow spots. You must pay attention during this movie as too much goes on that you'll miss. It will leave you guessing right up until the end. The language and subject matter are strong, and not for kids, but this movie is one not to miss.
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I rate this title iffy and give it
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I rate this title iffy and give it
Hmm....
...I found this movie to be good, but largely overrated. I mean, it's not bad at all, but I found lots of the characters to be extremely annoying, and there were very few I actually cared about. It had a perfect cast, and a couple of incredibly powerful scenes...but for some reason, I didn't love it. It all felt a bit artificial to me somehow. 'Crash' is a pretty good movie, but I definitely don't think it deserved Best Picture at the Oscars.
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I rate this title iffy and give it
Amazing!
I was 12 when I first saw the movie. Before you all jump on me my mom "edited" a few of the sexual scenes. Other than that sure, the language was a little bit strong, but it emphasized the movie. After awhile, (like I do with most movies), I didnt even notice the cuss words. What I'm tryin to say is depending on the maturity of your child, I think the appropiate age to watch this movie would be 14. It was a great movie that had deep issues and an amaing storyline. My favorite movie so far.
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