Cultural ‘Crash’ at the water cooler

With its depiction of multicultural Los Angeles as a city riven by racial strife, urban ennui and class warfare, “Crash” has sharply divided film critics. But it has pulled together a critical mass of filmgoers to remain among the top-grossing movies at the box office for four weeks running.

The ensemble drama has turned into must-see viewing for those who want to stay inside the cultural loop, much the same as last year’s “The Passion of the Christ” -- another controversial movie that became unavoidable small-talk fodder -- albeit on a smaller scale.

“The movie is becoming water-cooler conversation,” said John Hegeman, president of worldwide marketing for the movie’s distributor, Lions Gate Films. “There’s a cultural relevance to it.”

The Los Angeles Times called “Crash” “a grim, histrionic experiment in vehicular metaphor slaughter”; it also received a scathing review in the New York Times. The New Yorker, however, hailed it as “the strongest American film since Clint Eastwood’s ‘Mystic River.’ ” Despite those mixed reviews, the $7.5-million film -- which stars Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon and Sandra Bullock -- has played strongly throughout the country. In Manhattan, “Crash” was the most highly attended movie on its opening weekend, and it remains among the three most attended films in Southern California.

“Everyone in my office has been talking about it,” said Jun Rhee, 37, an Internet technology supervisor from Los Angeles. “I felt like I had to see for myself or else I wouldn’t be part of the conversations.”

For his part, writer-director Paul Haggis, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of “Million Dollar Baby,” feels gratified that “Crash” has gotten people talking. “I think it’s fabulous that people are coming out of any film and debating it,” he says.

“When you’re making a film like this, you want strong opinions. You want people to argue about things. When [executive producer and co-star] Don Cheadle and [co-writer and producer] Bobby Moresco and I were setting out, we knew we’d stir up a lot of feelings -- some of them negative.”

However, to combat perceptions that the filmmakers had set out to sensationalize racial conflict, the movie’s marketers pre-screened “Crash” for influential activists and pop icons, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, music producer L.A. Reid and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“We got community leaders from a diverse makeup of nationalities who we wanted to give a feeling of why this was important,” said Hegeman of Lions Gate. “All were supportive of the movie. We just had to screen it and they said, ‘Do you need help getting the word out? We would love to spread it.’ ”

Further, “Crash” has benefited from the kind of “you gotta check out this movie” buzz that is hard to manufacture.

“The proverbial fourth act -- when you’re walking out of the theater -- is the most important act,” observed Vicangelo Bulluck, executive director of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People’s Hollywood bureau, who enjoyed the film. “It’s about what it makes you think about and discuss with friends and colleagues.”

The breakdown of ticket sales illustrates Bulluck’s point. “Crash” was the fourth-highest-grossing film on its opening weekend, May 6-8, and attendance dropped only 23% in its second week in nationwide release. (By comparison, “House of Wax,” which was released the same weekend as “Crash,” dropped 46% in the same period.) More significantly, on “Crash’s” third weekend, the drop-off rate fell slightly, to 21%.

By the fourth weekend, the drop-off rate was only 13% -- an indicator that interest in the film is holding relatively steady. Its cumulative gross, meanwhile, stood at just below $35 million.

“I not only recommend this film to friends, family and colleagues,” said Beth Sacks, 36, an actress in New York, “but to strangers I may happen to talk to on the street.”

“Crash,” which is playing on 1,800 screens across the country, appeals to moviegoers from every demographic stripe, its marketers say.

“So often, a movie will click with a specific target audience,” said Hegeman. “What’s interesting about ‘Crash’ is that it’s working across the board in upscale theaters, blue-collar areas and racially diverse areas across the country. This is a movie that’s hitting a chord with a diverse group in terms of age and racial composition.”

“I think the movie has very strong word of mouth,” said the NAACP’s Bulluck. “In the African American community, those that I know are encouraging everyone they know to go and see it.”

Not everyone shares the same warm feeling for the film, however. Angela Clemons, for one, walked out of the theater about an hour before the film’s ending.

“I couldn’t stand the anger and frustration everyone exhibited toward each other,” said Clemons, who lives in Tyler, Texas, where she also saw the movie. “ ‘Crash’ seemed to pit every race against the other races. It overwhelmed me.”

At work, she cautioned an African American colleague to avoid the film, citing the way it would push her emotional buttons. The advice, however, backfired. “That’s made her more curious,” said Clemons, 48. “Now, she wants to see it.”

While she doesn’t second-guess her decision to leave the film before it was over, Clemons remains curious enough to give “Crash” a second chance.

“I can’t get the dang movie out of my head,” she said. “I will have to rent the video when it comes out. The anger that made me walk out of the movie has stuck with me and I want to see if there’s a happy ending.”