Racism collides with its targets during one thirty-six-hour period in Los Angeles. Alive with bracing human drama and blistering wit, the film benefits from the strong directing debut of Paul Haggis, the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby. In the style of Magnolia, Haggis and co-writer Bobby Moresco weave many stories (too many) into the narrative. But the rage sticks, as do the emotions underlying it. The district attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his wife (Sandra Bullock, strikingly uncongenial)…

Detective Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) and his partner Ria (Jennifer Esposito) get into a car accident en route to investigate a murdered body found in a canyon overlooking Los Angeles. Ria is ready to snap necks, but Graham explains, ''It's the sense of touch…I think we miss that sense of touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something.'' He ain't kiddin'. Crash begins at the end, after 24 hours that have not only irrevocably changed Graham's life but also the lives of…