Truly the mark of someone who isn't very talented. As others have noted Haggis lifts scenes and ideas directly from earlier films like Pulp Fiction and Magnolia. These important men also love paying 'homage' to other films. These important men like to believe that Hollywood is still relevant as far as social issues and changing times (which we all know hasn't really been the case since the great American cinema of the 70's).
Misogyny is popular with producers and studio heads and these same important men like to feel as of what they do in Hollywood trickles down to us mere mortals like manna from heaven. It's not even offensive to me the "how's" of "how" this crap got made. Or their more recent month long subject of Asian Images in Hollywood than to throw your money away on this insulting piece of filth.
You would do much better watching TCM's specials on African American Films from the Golden Age to current times. If you're even a little aware of American culture please don't bother with this "film" (for lack of a better name). I can only imagine that cleverly marketed to the do-gooders of the Hollywood out-of-touch- elite (Please Google George Clooney's acceptance speech where he makes ridiculous comments like 'Hollywood has always been ahead of the curve.' And he reminded us that Hollywood was progressive enough back in the so-called Golden Era of H-Wood to give a black actor an Oscar.eh is for these types of 'petite' racist morons that Crash was made).
It's so very badly written, acted, edited, shot but somehow (amazingly!) somehow this manipulative- pretentious-after-school-special (actually that's insulting to millions of students) got nomination after nomination. It was so bad I was laughing out loud during scenes which the awful writer-director (Welles he definitely ain't & never will be) I'm certain believed would be 'thought provoking', or 'heart breaking gritty realism'. This is by far one of the very worst movies I've ever had the displeasure to view. Among the players are: the Caucasian district attorney, who uses race as a political card his Caucasian wife, who, having recently been carjacked by two black men, believes that her stereotypical views of non-whites is justified and cannot be considered racism the two black carjackers who use their race both to their advantage and as an excuse partnered Caucasian police constables, one who is a racist and uses his authority to harass non-whites, and the other who hates his partner because of those racist views, but who may have the same underlying values in his subconscious a black film director and his black wife, who believes her husband doesn't support their black background enough, especially in light of an incident with the racist white cop partnered police detectives and sometimes lovers, one Hispanic female and the other black male, the latter who is dealing with a drugged out mother that feels he isn't concerned enough about taking care of family an East Asian man who is run over but who is hiding some valuable cargo in the back of his van a Persian store owner, who feels he isn't getting satisfaction from American society when his store is robbed time and time again and a Hispanic locksmith, who just wants to keep his family, especially his young daughter, safe in a seemingly unsafe world. Over a thirty-six hour period in Los Angeles, a handful of disparate people's lives intertwine as they deal with the tense race relations that belie life in the city.