Image two young black men walking down the street, neatly dressed but with a hip-hop flair. One has cornrows, the other a tapered afro. They walk with a swagger. You look at them, and they study you.

Many would try to hold stereotypes at bay -- but the urge to pigeonhole strangers along racial lines often gets the best of all of us. That's the main theme of the highly anticipated film Crash, which hits theaters this weekend.

Larenz Tate, who lit up the screen in the 1993 film Menace II Society, co-stars with Chris Bridges -- aka hip-hop star Ludacris, in yet another role that shows off his own acting chops.

The film follows the seemingly disconnected stories of Los Angeles residents -- white, black, Latino, whatever -- and how their lives intersect in unexpected ways, forcing them to confront their own prejudice.

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