I gave Crash a miss in the theaters last year, because a review or two suggested that I’d be wasting my time watching a formulaic race relations film. But the Best Picture Oscar got me to reconsider.

What I’m now reconsidering is my interest in seeing movies that have won Best Picture Oscars.

Which is not to say that this is a worthless film, because the acting is excellent, and the screenplay does have continual zing. But there were two things that truly set me off from this film; here the spoilers commence, so if you have not seen it yet this might be a good time to stop reading.

The first problem is that I’ve been to Los Angeles, and I thought it was a fairly large town, but according to this movie it surely can’t be more than eight square blocks. At least, that appears to be the frequency with which the characters run into each other and appear at the same locations. In the history of policing, I doubt that any detective has wandered from his own car crash to the police scene where his brother is the murder victim.

The second problem is that I’ve known a few racists, both overt and subtle, and I’ve spent my life living in the sort of urban environment where, like L.A., racism is a steady undercurrent but rarely talked about. I grew up as the sole Jewish kid in a neighborhood that was approximately 95% black. And no one talks the way these characters do. At least, not to each other. Maybe at home, or at the bar that only caters to one race or ethnicity. But not to each other. Never to each other.

Matt Dillon plays the only character I think I might meet, because he’s a bigot, and bigots frequently have a tin ear. Although most bigots have the awareness to know when not to insult people from whom they’re asking a favor.

And maybe this white Jewish guy isn’t the right judge to say whether Terrence Howard’s portrayal of a black man conflicted about “acting white” doesn’t ring true. But I can say that I don’t think that any of my friends who have discussed this with me felt the need to risk suicide by cop to absolve themselves of their guilt.

Closing the movie review, if you want to see a great movie about the human condition and our interconnectedness, try Grand Canyon. Or Thirteen Conversations About One Thing.

And to close the race commentary… a few months ago, I got hassled on the street by a plainclothes cop who had the idea that the cigarette I just finished smoking was a joint. For around five minutes, I was talking to a guy who was convinced I was wrong, who had the power to arrest me, and who—most disturbingly—I absolutely could not convince that I was one of the good guys.

I’ve almost been arrested when I was breaking the law, and it wasn’t nearly as upsetting as this was.

I’m white. I don’t expect cops to look at me twice. I tend not to think of those two being connected, but I’m told that I’m naive that way. And it wasn’t until a cop looked at me twice that I really got what that was about.