Film Analysis Of Crash, The Movie By Paul Haggis

Crash is an Oscar winning, American drama from 2004 written, directed and produced by Paul Haggis. The film is about racial tensions and the effect these tensions have on people showing their daily lives in Los Angeles, California post 9/11. The film asks hard hitting questions about racism and shows harsh realities that are normally avoided. Crash actually evolved from a real life incident where Haggis had his Porsche stolen outside of a video store in 1991 in Los Angeles. There are a variety of races in this movie, Hispanics, Blacks, Whites, Asians and a particular Persian family. Instead of the characters being shown as honest heroes and their best version of themselves, Haggis decides to show them at their lowest and worst moments. He shows
Ludacris’ best friend in the movie, Peter played by Larenz Tate helps him steal cars and sells him to chop-shops as their income. Ludacris is obviously the alpha of the duo; he acclaims his dominance by always trying to prove he is more hood or has more thug in him than Tate. he says he has more experience in the streets and he is more aware than Tate always talking first and often talks down to Tate as if he is a “know it all.” Tate does not talk much and always tries to create a counterargument to what Ludacris is saying seeking the positive side when Ludacris wants to challenge the hardships and struggles of a black man in society. Ludacris tells Tate, “You do not have any idea of why they put great big windows on busses, one reason only, to humiliate the people of color riding them.” Tate and Ludacris feel as if they look or often characterize themselves appearances to be similar to UCLA college students and not thugs although in Crash, they are completely opposite of what they want to embody. In the movie we watch the two characters’ lives closely as they steal and sell cars to the chop-shop and as they survive day to day in Los Angeles, California. Ludacris feels as if the world is against him and he wants Tate
He rescues immigrants that were involved in a trafficking sale. He takes a van he stole to the chop shop, unaware there were immigrants shackled to the inside of it. The owner of the chop shop offers him five hundred dollars per immigrant and Ludacris could keep the van. Ludacris actually decided to free the immigrants versus selling them for profit. He decided to make the best out of a bad situation. He has good qualities and characteristics. He changed at the end turning out to be an okay guy and I cannot say if he will revert to his old ways or not. He could become an even better character if starts to listen more and accept others opinions versus being so close minded and negative when it comes to sensitive matters. He wants to change and showed us some hope but I don’t know if he can stop believing in ethnocentrism, I hope he can but doubts are high due to the fact in life as humans we all carry unintentional habits. Some habits are hard to change and hard to break due to the influences we have around us. Earlier in the movie, Tate and Ludacris run over a Chinese gentleman, instead of helping him as soon as it happened, Ludacris wanted to debate with Tate on what to do when Tate felt the first thing they should do was help the man. Instead they dropped him off outside of the hospital instead of taking him in and not throwing him out of the car like empty trash. Why did he not help the Chinese man under the