Absolutely Fantastic

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

It's the Christmas season in L.A. Rose Johnny (Jessica Biel) is a drug-addicted stripper at Velvet Larry (Patrick Swayze)'s sleazy strip club with a coma kid in the hospital. Her dog escapes from her motel room and gets run over by shy mortician Qwerty Doolittle (Eddie Redmayne). Jack Doheny (Ray Liotta) is just released after 25 years in prison. His former boss Randall (Kris Kristofferson) gives him a suitcase full of money and directions to Rose Johnny. Charlie (Forest Whitaker) is a suicidally depressed ex-priest. He picks up transsexual prostitute Lexus (Alejandro Romero) and offers her his life savings of $50k to kill him with his gun. Doolittle is struggling for money and Charlie shows up offering the same deal. Waitress Sally (Lisa Kudrow) tries to show Charlie some kindness.These characters are all lost. There is an emptiness in these characters and quite frankly in this movie. The actors try their best but filmmaker Timothy Linh Bui can't really pull it all together. The scattered nature of the narrative diffuses any tension. It just fails to maintain my interest in these people. Somewhere in the first half, it needs to reveal the connections and the backstories.

This is a very poignant movie about the loneliness that pervades the human condition, and how seemingly coincidental events can affect people whose paths otherwise wouldn't have crossed. Jessica Biel gives a stellar performance as an exotic dancer (it seems she did her own dancing) who has unresolved family situations. Forest Whitaker is another main character whose performance is compelling as a grieving widower. Ray Liotta gives a haunting portrayal of an ex-con seeking some closure. And Eddie Redmayne portrays a mortician who also likes giving puppet shows for children's' entertainment. Lisa Kudrow also does well in a supporting role. I think it's a very well written and executed drama.

I'm not a big fan of dramas because they usually leave me sobbing in the corner of my room and thinking why life is so damn unfair. That doesn't mean that I think those movies are rubbish, just that I don't watch them often. So there is no need to tell that I approached this movie with caution but, as it turned out, I had nothing to be afraid of. Four different tales of powerlessness and loneliness and what wouldn't people do to escape it. The movie doesn't leave you helpless and questioning the meaning of life, which, in my case, is important, but instead you except that neither them nor you can do anything about it and that, though you do the best you can, life still sucks. But what impressed me the most was the music. If you heard the songs on the radio, you probably wouldn't think them special in any way (I know I wouldn't), but as background music to most of the scenes it just works. It makes them more real and (for the lack of a better word) close. So,the verdict is: it is sad, yes, but just enough.

Life as we know it ... well not exactly as we know it, but then again characters and a story we can get behind. Or at least feel with the "players" (if you consider life a game that is). And while there have been quite a few movies that do use the cross time lines and different characters, that might or might not have a common goal or something else in common, this is a very nice tryout too.Just don't watch it for one scene involving Jessica Biel. If your sole purpose is to watch that scene, do not bother with the rest and fast forward to that scene and get it over with. Because you wouldn't care for the build-up and the character moments anyway. Of course they are important, but also put that scene into a perspective that some viewer might not like ...Having said that, if Drama is your cup of tea, you will watch it either way. Not "Crash", but still solid