DVDs in Review

Crash (Blu-ray)

Title: Crash (2005)

Release date: February 1 2010

Certificate: 15

Format: Blu-ray

RRP: £22.99

Rating: 4/5

Many lives cross and collide in Paul Haggis' Oscar winning 'Crash', in a non-linear format that films like Robert Altman's 'Short Cuts' and Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Magnolia' have excelled in before. Those two examples are probably better films on the whole, but 'Crash' is arguably that little bit more focussed where the others were purposefully disparate.  

'Crash' is concerned with inner city racism in a vastly multi-cultured Los Angeles. The characters depict just about every level of society, from crooked cops to politicians, shopkeepers and criminals. As a result, it can come off as being a bit safe in its quest to tick as many boxes as possible.

Only a few of the characters maintain a lasting impression – the most lauded being Matt Dillon's Oscar nominated turn as a seedy cop who sexually abuses some of those that he arrests, all the while dealing with his father's ailing health and his own inadequacies at home.

Other cast members include Thandie Newton, Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Ryan Phillippe,William Fichtner and Brendan Fraser in this star studded drama.

Nobody puts a foot wrong and, if anything, the film could do with being longer to flesh out their characters a bit more (the aforementioned films clocked in around three hours while this goes for two). Still, a crash is meant to be fast and in a vast city there isn't time to get to know everyone and their problems.

There is a degree of anonymity in the lives being played out in films like this that allows the audience to relate parts of themselves to different characters. It's a case of the sum of the parts making up a far more rewarding whole than a plot about the individual characters would've been.  

Come Oscar season, this memorably caused a stir when it nabbed Best Picture away from 'Brokeback Mountain' - a very different film that also deals with human characters struggling to be accepted in a changing, if somewhat backwards-thinking America.

It's obvious that Haggis is a talented writer. He created the TV series 'Due South' and then went on to do films like 'Million Dollar Baby' and 'Casino Royale' – all fantastic. As a director, he is lean but struggling with his scenes' focus points.

 His next project after crash, the Tommy Lee Jones drama 'In the Valley of Elah' was a considerable improvement, playing to his strengths as a more subtle, slower-paced filmmaker.

The Blu-ray release of this particular impressive, if scattershot, multi-layered drama is a welcome one. The picture and sound are uniformly excellent, as are the bonus materials.