In a period of 36 hours the lives of a racist white cop, a black detective, the district attorney, his emotionally unstable wife, two black car-packers, a black TV producer, a Persian shop owner, a Mexican locksmith and his five year old daughter will all collide into each other, in the movie “Crash.”

“Look what they wrote. They think we are Arab. When did Persian become Arab?” asked the Persian shop owner’s wife studying their broken and vandalized shop.

Conditioned and forged by the racisms in our society, some of these characters will fulfill these stereotypes; others will defy the world around them and break the mold.

Written and directed by academy award nominee Paul Haggis for “A Million Dollar Baby”, the movie exhibits strong performances by well know actor and actresses Don Cheadle, Brendan Frasier, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, and Sandra Bullock. But one performance does not stand above the rest for this ensemble of great performances becomes an amalgamation, which is every character experiencing the same emotion at the same time.

Still, with such a dark theme, Haggis shines a light of hope in the story when the plot can escalate from terrible to horrifying, it does not and hope is experienced by the characters within.

In the same way that Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream” brutally exhorts its viewers not to do drugs, Haggis’ “Crash” implicitly urges those who watch it not to be racist, showing how it cultivates hate and fear in our lives.

“I just thought that I would wake up today, and feel better. But I was still mad, and I realized that it had nothing to do with my car being stolen. I wake up like this every morning. I am angry all the time, and I don’t know why,” said Sandra Bullock’s character in the movie.

1 hour and 40 minutes long, “Crash” is currently available for rental and is a definite must see for all mature audiences.