I was really moved by this movie today.

Very racially charged- I think regardless of your background you're gonna feel uncomfortable at least twice during this flick... Especially during the first 1/4 of the film which I felt was a little heavy handed in its message. Some of you have already touched on the 'force-fed' racism so I won't get into that. It was a bit much but I think it would be foolish to say 'oh people would NEVER react like that in real life!' I mean just look at the LA Riots not much longer than 10 years ago. Shit can get volatile. I really didn't see the force-fed moments of Crash as that big of a flaw.
In fact I think it helped the movie work to its fullest potential. Because you start out hating these flat, evil, 'bad guy' characters and then the darndest thing happens- they unfold into real, three dimensional human beings- with equal capacity for love and hate, flaw and triumph, cowardice and heroism. I think someone said they loved all the characters and at the same time hated all the characters. I feel that was pretty spot-on. They all had their up and down moments. In fact the only entirely unlikeable character in my opinion was Sandra Bullock. But I hate her in everything, so...

Probably my favorite example is Matt Dillon's character, the racist cop. In this movie he does such unspeakable, rotten things that you immediately just want to write him off as 'the bad guy' character for this movie. Crash doesn't make it that easy for you. As his story unfolds you find out he has an ailing father back home who he loves very much and works very hard to take care of. Later we witness him risk his life to save a woman from a burning car. Do these acts of valor excuse his bigotry? Of course not, but they do make him human. He can't be redeemed for what he's done no matter what. But at the same time it's difficult to box him in as being 'the good guy' or 'the bad guy'. Same goes for all the characters, really.

And that's where Crash really won me over. The characters were so damn human. They were scared, they were angry, they felt trapped, overcrowded and powerless- and these feelings often manifested themselves in the form of racism among other things. I felt like Crash treated racism as more of a symptom than a disease. It was part of a larger problem ingrained in the human condition. I found it to be a mature and interesting take on things.

For all the downer moments the movie had (and it could have had FAR more- was I the only one holding my breath during that scene with the Persian storeowner and the little girl protecting her father?) I felt it ended on a positive note and I walked out of that theater feeling good to be alive.

Powerful stuff, I definitely recommend.