by SARAH ROWLAND

“When I was car-jacked in 1991, I just kept asking myself, ‘Who were those kids that put guns in my face?’”

A valid question, and one that eventually led to Paul Haggis’s directorial debut Crash, a sharply written film that intertwines several different storylines about the cycle of racial intolerance.

“Slowly those thoughts seeped into my conscience until one night I woke up at 2 in the morning and started writing about them,” says Haggis, who’s calling from Vancouver. “And then I asked myself, ‘How would I feel if the kid who came to change my locks after the jacking was a Hispanic who looked like a gangbanger with a shaved head and tattoos?’ Which is pretty dark stuff, so I put that in Sandra Bullock’s mouth.”

Granted the bar is pretty low, but Miss Congeniality really does some of her best work here. Bullock is both sympathetic and revolting as the bitter, racist wife of L.A. district attorney Rick (Brendan Fraser), who is preoccupied with how getting mugged by two black kids will affect his standing with the minority vote. In fact, her performance is so impressive that it even surpassed Haggis’s expectations.

“She really stepped up and just let the venom go,” he says. “It was just unapologetic. Needless to say, I was pretty amazed.”

Casting calls

Which brings us to the casting. Try convincing some friends that they should check out a movie which features not only Bullock, but has-been Tony Danza (who plays a sleazy producer who wants his sitcom star to sound more, “you, know: black,”) and never-been Ryan Phillippe (aka Mr. Witherspoon, playing a wet-behind-the-ears cop who is desperately trying to prove how colour blind he is). It’s not an easy sell. But that’s the genius of Haggis.

“I wanted actors who you hadn’t seen in those roles before because it speaks to the contradiction of how we perceive people,” says Haggis, who knew before he sat down to type the Oscar-nominated script for Million Dollar Baby that he wanted Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman and either Clint Eastwood or Paul Newman to play the leads. “This was a totally different experience. We [Crash co-writer Robert Moresco], purposely didn’t have anyone in mind when we wrote the characters. As a result it took almost a year-and-a-half to put this cast together.”

The first to come on board Haggis’s ambitious project was none other than Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda).

“I was like, ‘Great: which role?’ and he said, ‘I don’t care,’” recalls Haggis. “He actually kept going back and forth between the role of the detective and that of the TV director. Every week he would call and say, ‘Nah, I changed my mind.’ This went on for like five months.”

Cheadle eventually settled on the role of the cop; he must have skimmed through the script to the part where his character bones Jennifer Esposito’s. The result is the hottest on-screen sex this year so far. Not that it’s overly graphic, but there’s just so much chemistry between the Latina babe and Cheadle that Haggis could have made a whole movie featuring just those two fucking and fighting for 90 minutes.

Erasing Chuck Norris memories

Another stand-out, and perhaps one that’s not as surprising, is Matt Dillon as the bad cop. Officer Ryan has a hate-on for all African Americans because his ailing paps was canned from his job due to affirmative action. Now his chronically ill old man has no medical coverage, a healthcare twist that could only have been written by a Canuck.

“Hey, I’m proud of being Canadian,” assures Haggis. One thing he’s not so proud of, however, is some of his CanCon television writing. He’s got a rap sheet that starts with Hangin’ In and ends with Due South. But perhaps his most heinous contribution to the small screen was an American production starring Chuck Norris, which he says he did only as a favour for a friend who was running CBS at the time.

“I agreed to write the pilot because I thought it would just go away,” he says. “But it became this huge hit and I remember waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning in a cold sweat, dripping wet. I mean, I was drenched. I just pictured my tombstone and it said: ‘Paul Haggis: Creator of Walker, Texas Ranger.’ So the impetus for making these movies is really just to wipe that image from my mind.”

Crash opens Friday, May 6

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