Paul Haggis and his wife had been to a movie premiere in Los Angeles when they stopped at a neighborhood video store on the way home. Near as Haggis can recall, they rented a Norwegian or Finnish film, something with subtitles.

	Jim Sheldon Don Cheadle, left, and director Paul Haggis confer on the set of "Crash." Click photo for larger image. Movie review 'Crash' steers a course through fear, prejudice, kindness

They got in their car, only to be confronted by two men with guns. When the carjackers told Haggis they'd be taking his vehicle, he replied, "Of course you will." He handed over the keys, helped his wife out and walked away. Haggis then heard footsteps and felt a gun punched into his back.

One of the carjackers snatched the videotape, returned to the car and took off.

"I always wondered what those guys did with the videotape," Haggis says with a laugh. The cassette was never recovered and neither was the car, but the questions about the carjackers lingered for a decade.

"I just wondered about them, what they were doing, whether this was a one-time thing or if this was a career. They were very young; I wondered if they were good friends, how long they'd known each other. All these questions rolled around in my mind for many years."

And one night at 2 a.m., they rolled right to the part of the brain where they could no longer be ignored. Haggis got out of bed and started to write.

By 10 a.m., he had 40 pages of stories, outlines, characters and dialogue. He called pal Bobby Moresco. They decided to collaborate, and in a couple of weeks they wrote the screenplay for "Crash," which Haggis also directed. (Moresco would later come to Pittsburgh to shoot "10th & Wolf," still to be released.)

In a scant 36 hours, "Crash" weaves its way through privilege and poverty, suspicion and sincerity, caustic anger and compassion, ridicule and redemption. Its ensemble cast includes Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Terrence Howard, Thandie Newton and Brendan Fraser.

With its charged examination of race and class warfare, the actors often found themselves uttering lines that were inflammatory, hurtful or -- at the very least -- politically incorrect.

"Matt was doing a scene with Loretta Devine, and they were in the middle of this incredibly heated conversation and I called 'Cut,' and they were sitting there for a second and just burst out laughing. It was so horrible what they were doing to each other, especially what he was doing to her, and it was just so uncomfortable in that moment."

Howard plays a successful TV director who, with his wife, is stopped by the cops and harassed one night. Howard's character has a second stand-off with the police in a scene that eerily echoed his own life.

"When he auditioned for the role, he said, 'You know, you've just written my story.' He had it in front of an ATM machine, where three squad cars pulled up, called him out, guns drawn, and something snapped. He said, 'Come on, shoot me! Shoot me -- you want to shoot me!' He did this exact scene, so he actually drew on that, and afterward, he was a little shaken by it. At the same time it was cathartic to be able to work through it and survive."

Haggis, a veteran TV writer, producer and director whose work on "thirtysomething" earned him two Emmys and a Humanitas Prize, places Howard's character behind the camera of a TV sitcom as its director. Tony Danza has a cameo as a producer who complains about the line delivery of a young black actor.

"I was on the studio lot shooting a television show, and I walked up on two white producers who were talking to a black director who was in their employ, and as I got closer, I realized they were telling him a racist joke," Haggis recalls. "I saw the black director just laugh, laugh and walk away, and I realized he just paid a terrible price for his employment. ...

"That subtle racism led to the scene with Tony Danza. I think he's as close to a villain as I have in this movie."

Although Haggis' movie explores race and class, he says it's really about fear of strangers.

Haggis, a Canadian turned Californian, says, "After 9/11, we became just terrified of everybody, including our neighbor. That's what I wanted to write about, the fact that we keep closing ourselves off, hoping that we'll be safe by isolating ourselves from other people," especially in a city such as Los Angeles where residents are cocooned in cars.

"Crash" arrives on the heels of Haggis' Academy Award nomination for "Million Dollar Baby." He lost the writing Oscar to the "Sideways" writers but took the F. X. Toole story in "Rope Burns" and turned it into a Best Picture winner with rich roles for Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman.

"Crash" actually was filmed before "Million Dollar Baby" but is being released afterward. "I directed it before Clint shot 'Million Dollar Baby,' and it just happened they rushed theirs to get it out for Christmas, but I did get to stand on the set and watch and learn a lot from Clint."

Haggis thought it was pathetic that some critics gave away the surprise twist in "Million Dollar Baby." Still, he says, people who knew the secret or saw the movie for a second time told him they were moved.

"We really wanted you to be in the experience; we wanted people to be as shocked as the characters were, to take that ride with them because I remember when people were reading the script back in 2001, friends would read it and go, 'Oh, what a lovely script, Paul.' "

He would ask what page they were on and suggest they read a little more. Then, they would call back and exclaim, "Oh, my God. ..."

Like "Million Dollar Baby," "Crash" doesn't neatly tie up all the loose ends. "I love films that don't force-feed the audience, that challenge you but don't make you feel dumb, so you're asking questions about yourself or that you're arguing with friends on the way out about the meaning of something; that's the very best kind of movie for me.

"If everything's wrapped up by the time you leave the film, and there's nothing left hanging, nothing to think about, even the tiniest thing, then it's an empty experience for me."