Lights, camera, action!
A racist cop gets into a car accident with another racist driver. We flash back to the day before, when a racist gun store owner sells a gun to an angry Persian man and his not-angry, not-racist daughter. Elsewhere in Los Angeles, two kind of racist criminals carjack the maybe-not-racist-but-we're-not-sure DA of LA and his definitely racist wife. That night, racist wife says she wants a different locksmith because the one she's got is Mexican and she thinks he'll sell her house keys to his gang friends. Because all Mexicans have gang friends, right? (Wrong.)
Meanwhile, the racist cop and her racist partner from the beginning of the movie investigate a crime that may be motivated by race. (In a shocking twist, it's not, but it ends up being made about race, anyway.) And, finally, another racist cop pulls over a Black married couple, sexually molests the wife, and humiliates the husband.
The married couple fight all night because the wife thinks her husband should have stood up for her. To her, his refusal to stand up for them means he is complicit in the white cop's racism, making him just as bad as they are.
Whew, okay—we've met everybody. They might not all be racist, but really only five of them aren't totally racist—the Persian daughter, the white DA, the Black wife, the Mexican locksmith, and the racist cop's white partner.
All the racist people, and four of the not-quite-as racist ones, have anger issues, and they all act nasty for a while. Not-racist Officer Murphy (Ryan Phillippe) asks for a new partner after Racist Officer Ryan's (Matt Dillon) gross behavior at the traffic stop. Racist Jean Cabot (Sandra Bullock) yells at her Mexican housekeeper for not properly loading the dishwasher. Officer Ryan (Matt Dillon) is rude to racist insurance agent Shaniqua Johnson (Loretta Devine).
It goes on.
The two racist detectives Waters and Ria (Don Cheadle and Jennifer Esposito) are not only sleeping with each other, but they're racist to each other. Racist Fred (Tony Danza) makes racist remarks to the TV director Cameron Thayer (Terrence Howard), who still isn't listening to his wife, Christine (Thandie Newton). Iranian shopkeeper Farhad (Shaun Toub) argues with locksmith Daniel Ruiz (Michael Peña). The two criminals Anthony and Peter (Ludacris and Larenz Tate) keep preaching to each other about race.
Eventually, all heck breaks loose. Shaniqua Johnson denies Officer Ryan's dad's insurance claim. Officer Ryan saves Christine from a burning car, and she is not happy that it's the man who sexually assaulted her who's saving her life. Cameron taunts cops and almost gets shot, forcing Officer Murphy to intervene. In a misunderstanding, Officer Murphy shoots Peter and hides the body.
Peter turns out to be Detective Waters' brother, and Waters is sad about that. Waters agrees to send a racist cop to jail to get a promotion for himself. Farhad fires his gun at Ruiz, but it turns out his daughter puts blanks in it. And Jean Cabot falls down, like, two steps and hurts her ankle. Despite having literally the smallest problem of everyone, she whines the most.
And that's about it. Did anyone learn any lessons? Will these people keep crashing into each other? How expensive are everyone's insurance premiums going to be after this?
We want to see a remake of this movie starring Flo from Progressive. Get on it, Hollywood.