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"In any real city, you walk. You brush past people. People bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other just so that we can feel something."

These words, spoken by a weary, worn L.A. detective (Don Cheadle), bring us into "Crash", a sprawling indictment of urban racism, social class divisions, and human intolerance in America that is Paul Haggis' first film in the director's chair (he wrote the script for Clint Eastwood's brilliant heartbreaker "Million Dollar Baby"). Cheadle's opening words, as well, set the movie's thoughts into motion, as we follow a dozen or so intersecting lives people of varying race and circumstance living in and around Los Angeles and explore how chance events shape and reshape them. If you're a fan of Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" (1993) or Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" (1999) both great films that follow various L.A. lives in a similar way you'll know that this type of divergent logic structure, when done well, can often draw out a wider, more richly defined portrait of ideas than something with a tighter focus; something like Eastwood's "Baby", which is equally great in its own way.

Ensembles particularly ensemble dramas typically cast a wider, more expansive thematic net than do so called "straight" dramas. That is not to say that they are better, simply that they're likely to have more meat on the bones of their supporting cast of characters. In such films (the worthwhile ones, anyway), opposing views and actions can be given a fuller balance of weight and consequence; character and plot points set against each other and fleshed out with much more meaning. The reason for this is simple: in an ensemble piece like Crash, each of the characters equally matter each is whole, relevant, has his or her own distinct voice, and has a story to tell. And each story contributes equally to the whole. If a director's any good (Haggis certainly has his moments here), he'll know this, and create a complex, interesting movie like this one; if he's great, like Altman, he will know how to use it to create a masterpiece.

"Crash" is no masterpiece, but it's something that every movie should strive to be: it's relevant. It follows not only the Cheadle character, and his partner (Jennifer Esposito), as they investigate an apparent racially-motivated police shooting, but courses along on various other interwoven plotlines as well, picking up on

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