Collision

This five-part British miniseries—presented here in the two-episode version broadcast on PBS in 2009—centers on a horrendous multi-car pile-up on a freeway outside London, and while that might sound like an English version of the Oscar-winning American movie Crash, the focus here is quite different. Rather than using the event as a means to comment on racial and economic differences between those involved, Collision offers a procedural revolving around the investigation to determine the cause of the accident—specifically whether a police car caught up in a chase was a contributing factor. The narrative structure is complex, employing repeated chronological shifts to gradually disclose how all of those involved came to be on the road at the time and just why the disaster occurred. But while Collision is cleverly put together and generally absorbing, viewers might find it hard to swallow both the amount of criminal activity the various victims were engaged in, and the ultimate “butterfly effect” explanation that ties everything up at the close. The gambit of having the two primary investigators (Douglas Henshall and Kate Ashfield) as ex-lovers thrown back together on the job also seems like a cliché, while the subplot about Henshall's character being a widower whose wife was killed by a drunk driver is a bit too convenient. Still, this is an intelligent, engrossing film with a strong cast of able actors that demands the viewer's attention as it doles out information in bits and pieces. Recommended. (F. Swietek)