Crash: A-

There is a subtle difference between flawless and perfect. Flawless insists that although your face may be devoid of zits, you can still be ugly enough to crack a mirror into a 100 pieces. Perfection is just that, perfect.....and say hallelujah. Crash, a summer movie that is quickly becoming the predicted runner-up for the Oscars, is flawless. It isn't perfect.

We start with two police detectives (Don Cheadle and Jennifer Esposito), who just happen to be lovers,who find a body in a field outside L.A. as it begins to snow (they're as shocked as we are that it's snowing in L.A.). Flashback 36 hrs, and we follow two young black men (Chris Bridges and Larenz Tate) as they debate the merit of racial stereotypes and then carjack the District Attorney (Brenden Frasier) and his rich-bitch wife (Sandra Bullock, shattering all conceptions of her as miss congeniality). Soon a racist white cop (Matt Dillon giving a heart-stoppingly dark performance) and his young partner (Ryan Phillipe, devoid of the awful accents he picked up in Gosford Park) are on the scene tailing the car. They end up pulling over the wrong car purposefully that is owned by a rich and famous tv director (Terrence Howard) and his semi-alcoholic wife (Thandie Newton). The racist cop molests the wife and the partner stands frozen. Throw in a mexican lock-smith (Micheal Pena) that is cussed out by Sandra Bullock, an arab man that is enraged into a very horrifying act, and an asian man that is harboring some very interesting cargo in his white van. Eventually one of them will die.

This is the scenario with which writer-director-producer Paul Hagis creates a very devastating metaphor for race and preconcieved notions. The movie is intense to the point where you may feel sick, it never lets up. Of course the fact that the script is so searingly blunt, powerful, thoughtful, at times funny, and true can't help matters. The acting is great from everyone (over 20 main or supporting cast members), there are a few standouts though: Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Chris Bridges (better known as the rapper Ludacris), and Thandie Newton. I said at the very begining this movie isn't perfect. The main (and destructive flaw) is that Paul Hagis eventually tidy's things up too much. Trivializing the concept of race with which he is so haunted and fascinated.