Crash Movie Review

The 2004 movie Crash, directed by Paul Haggis, is a resemblance of how our society is today. It demonstrates people’s actions during their daily lives. There is a disconnection between every person and that is what makes each individual who they are. One way of depicting each person is through their actions, decisions, and the way they deal with people. Throughout the movie hate crime and hate speech was captured in the movie Crash through several characters. The one which I could easily identify was with the Persian family, Farhad the husband, Shareen the wife, and the daughter Dorri.

Several incidents occurred that could be portrayed in reality. The family business store was robed at gun point and to prevent the incident from occurring again, the family decided to purchase a gun for protection. Protection of a gun was the only way that Farhad could feel safe. Often people think that having a gun is the only way to not be harmed and the movie challenges that perception. Purchasing the gun was difficult because Farhad was from the Middle East. Dirk, the gun owner, gave the family a hard time when he denied them the right to purchase the gun.

I believe the gun seller had the mentality that the Persians were Arabian and that they were planning a terroristic attack. After the 911 attack in society, most Americans judge anybody with Arabian characteristics as the “evil” people. They feel that they are in America for one purpose and that is to cause terror. The store was vandalized and graffiti of the nationality Arab was mistakenly (the family is Persian) drawn on the wall of Farhad’s store. The family was victims of hate crime and hate speech without any justice; they were being attacked because of assumptions of being Arabian.

The judgment on the family’s ethnicity is something that constantly occurs around America. Personally, my family is Haitian and they speak Creole, since my family looks African American but speak another language, some people easily assume that they are African. My family has an accent and there were times when we would go to stores and people of other races would insult my family and tell them to go back to Africa because they could not understand what they were saying. My family had several situations where they had to leave a store a restaurant because of being a different ethnicity.

Throughout the movie, one would think that Farhad would have better treatment toward other people because of how others treat him and his family, but he displays the same treatment given to him, to others. After the store was vandalized, the shopkeeper called a locksmith by the name of Daniel to repair the lock. The lock was repaired, but it was the door that needed to be replaced and Daniel informed Farhad of this. The cold harsh treatments of other people cause Farhad to treat others the same way.

He becomes offensive and disrespects the repairman because he feels that the repairman is trying to rip him off. Daniel constantly told Farhad that the door needed to be replaced and Farhad did not take his words into consideration. Farhad insulted him and the repairman was so angry that he left without getting paid for his work. The door not being fixed caused Farhad to have more animosity to people outside his race. Aside from showing the animosity of foreigners, this movie also shows that Americans are not friendly people and mistreat foreigners who come to America for a better life.

The Persian family has their own store and it was their most prized possession in America. The young people hated them so much that they broke into their store and vandalized it. The vandalized store caused Farhad to blame the repairman. Whenever there is problem, human beings seem to never take accountability for their actions and blame other people before blaming themselves. Farhad accused the repairman for being at fault for the destructions of his store and tried to get his insurance to cover the damages.

The insurance could not reimburse Farhad for the damages of his store because the repairman told Farhad that the door needed to be replaced. Therefore, Farahad decided to get justice on his own. He wanted to retaliate and he identified the home address of the locksmith and waited on him to come home from work. Farhad saw the locksmith approach his home so Farhad walked toward him and pointed a gun at him. The Daniel’s daughter, Laura, saw the altercation, ran and jumped up on her father to give him a hug and protect him from getting shot.

Farhad pulls the trigger and nothing happens to the little girl. Farhad’s decision was selfish; he was too concerned about his shop and did not realize that killing a human being was not the right decision. Being that the shopkeeper, Farhad, is an immigrant, he was hated by Americans and it caused him to hate other nationalities as well. He wanted justice and he felt that the only way he can get it was by matching the hatred of his, with the hatred of his ethnicity, from other people. The people who vandalized Farhad’s store were negligent and did not accept diversity.

Farhad’s was tired of being hated because of his ethnicity, so he decided to take action. He was mistreated and he wanted the mistreatment to stop, he wanted to retaliate and make Daniel pay for the vandalism of his store. People in our society often feel that the only way that they can feel better about a person or situation is if they resolve it through fighting or killing. These conflicts are resolved by negative decisions of crimes and hurtful words because of being different in a society. There needs to be more peace and less violence in the world and the movie Crash exemplifies why.