Summary
In a rural part of Los Angeles late at night, Peter is hitchhiking. He is picked up by Detective Hansen, who is off-duty. Hansen initially seems at ease with his passenger. However, after Peter comments on Hansen’s country music and St. Christopher statuette, the officer grows increasingly agitated. The two begin to argue, and Peter reaches into his pocket to show Hansen the reason why he is laughing. However, before he can reveal his own St. Christopher statuette, Hansen shoots Peter dead.
Hansen is horrified when he realizes that Peter never carried a weapon. Hansen, who previously saw himself as morally upstanding and politically progressive, is confronted by his own bigotry. He quickly opens the passenger door of his vehicle and dumps Peter’s body on the side of the road. Later, it is revealed that Hansen abandons his car and sets it aflame. In this action, Hansen destroys all evidence of his racist crime.
The story then cuts back to the film’s opening scene. Detective Waters exits the vehicle as Ria argues with Kim Lee, making his way over to the body in the brush. He looks slightly concerned when he sees the abandoned gray Puma shoe on the side of the road, but he nonetheless continues his investigation. The camera cuts to a close shot of Waters’s expressive face. Previously nonchalant, Waters now appears distressed and saddened. At this moment, it is revealed that Peter is Waters’s missing delinquent brother.
From the window of a city bus, Anthony notices an abandoned white van with the keys in the ignition. Upon investigation, Anthony realizes that the van belongs to the Asian man he and Peter had struck the night before. He drives the van to his boss in hopes of receiving a cash reward. However, while at the car garage, Anthony finds a big surprise. After opening the trunk of the van, Anthony finds numerous Cambodian immigrants chained together. It becomes clear that these immigrants are, in fact, victims of human trafficking.
Kim Lee, the woman who crashed into Ria and Waters, arrives at the hospital. She is there to visit her husband, Choi Chin Gui, who turns out to be the man that Peter and Anthony ran over. After an affectionate reunion, Choi orders Kim to cash a mysterious check immediately. In another sequence, Dorri, Farhad’s daughter, is the coroner who examines Peter’s corpse. In her office, Waters’s mother collapses after identifying her dead son. She blames Graham for Peter’s tragic fate, as he ignored her repeated requests to find his missing brother. Addressing Graham’s negligence, she tells him that Peter returned home right before he died to bring her groceries.
In the film’s closing montage, Officer Ryan is shown in his bathroom, consoling his ill father. Rick Cabot returns home after work and pauses to stare out of the window that features the newly-changed lock. Mrs. Ruiz and Lara sleep soundly, while Daniel looks out of his bedroom’s window with an expression of wonder and gratitude. Thayer is driving his SUV on a rural road when he exits and marvels at Hansen’s car in flames. He answers a call from Christine, and the two exchange “I love you.” Waters returns to the scene of Peter’s death, where he finds his St. Christopher statuette buried in the ground.
Despite offers to sell the Cambodian prisoners, Anthony drives to Chinatown and sets them free. In the film’s final scene, Anthony passes a car accident. One of the drivers is Shaniqua Johnson, and as she exits her car, she begins to exchange racially-charged insults with the other drivers involved.
Analysis
The reappearance of the Saint Christopher statuette points to one of the film’s most profound examples of irony. According to legend, Saint Christopher carried an unknown child across a dangerous river. Later, that child revealed himself to be Christ. This biblical story bears an eerie resemblance to Peter and Hansen’s situation on the country road. Hansen, whose profession requires him to protect and care for others, picks up an anonymous young man in dangerous territory. However, Crash’s story diverges from the religious fable. As Officer Ryan foreshadowed earlier, Hansen is not as morally upright as he once thought himself to be. Though Peter never threatened Hansen’s safety, the officer’s prejudices ultimately lead him to commit a heinous crime.
When Waters is revealed to be Peter’s brother, the iconography of the St. Christopher statue reemerges. At the morgue, Waters’s mother is insistent in blaming the detective for his brother’s death. As a detective with resources and privileges, Waters, like Hansen, can also symbolically be interpreted as Saint Christopher. Though Waters possesses the strength to aid his vulnerable brother, he fails to be his “brother’s keeper.” Instead, Waters uses his power for personal and professional gains. Later, Waters’s return to the crime scene and his discovery of the statuette reveals to Waters his selfishness and negligence.
In the film’s final montage, we see the connection between numerous visual motifs. Both Daniel and Choi Chin Gui drive a white van, but their business endeavors strongly contrast one another. While Daniel is repeatedly demonized for his earnest professional endeavors, Gui is able to participate in unnoticed illegal activity. Another image that repeatedly appears in this closing sequence are windows. Through the large bus windows that have previously caused him aggravation, Anthony is able to spot Gui’s abandoned van and rescue the prisoners inside. Windows appear again in the film’s final moments, when both Daniel and Mr. Cabot appear to take a moment of reflection from inside their homes.
The crash involving Shaniqua Johnson demonstrates the congruency between the film’s opening and closing scenes. Though the end of the film provides resolution to many of the character’s individual stories, the reappearance of racial insults indicates that this behavior is not specific to a mere handful of characters. Rather, it demonstrates how prejudices are deeply rooted in society.
The series of closing shots leads us to understand that even the smallest choices can affect others. Haggis argues that our personal actions have a ripple effect on those in our community, our city, and our nation. Further, the film’s conclusion asserts that as people, we must confront what is happening inside of us. If we do not, we lose the opportunity to connect with others in meaningful and unifying ways. In the story’s closing moments, we understand that colliding with one another is not coincidental, but rather inevitable.
