Anthony Lane on Matt Dillon:

"Of all the pretty boys of the nineteen-eighties, Dillon has not just ripened most convincingly; he has discovered that the weatherings of age were exactly what he was waiting for. His racist cop was the best thing in Crash, and his rescue of Thandie Newton from an upturned car, with the flames crawling closer, has rightly burned a hole in viewers’ minds. A sloppy actor would have made the scene redemptive; he would have smiled upon the woman as he dragged her free, and his enfolding hug would have told of lessons learned. Instead, Dillon was aghast, stiffened with something unredeemable, and he clutched at Newton as if he, not she, had been trapped inside the fire."