And if you thought Crash and Babel were preachy and awful, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Crossing Over (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:102
Fresh:16
Rotten:86
Average Rating:4.1/10
Consensus: Crossing Over is flagrant and heavy-handed about a situation that deserves more deliberate treatment, and joins its characters with coincidences that strain believability.
Synopsis: The struggle to achieve resident alien status, or gain full-blown citizenship in the United States, provides some thought-provoking material in this feature from director Wayne Kramer(THE COOLER).... The struggle to achieve resident alien status, or gain full-blown citizenship in the United States, provides some thought-provoking material in this feature from director Wayne Kramer(THE COOLER). CROSSING OVER is an ensemble piece that contains many overlapping storylines, most of which revolve around Max Brogan (Harrison Ford), a law enforcement official who specializes in arresting people who break stringent immigration laws. Joining Ford is Ray Liotta, who plays a corrupt immigration official who forces a wannabe Australian actress (Alice Eve) to sleep with him in exchange for a green card. The film also focuses on the rigorous guidelines laid down in post-9/11 America, with Kramer detailing the shocking maltreatment of a teenage girl who faces deportation after giving a misguided high school presentation on terrorism. These tales, and several others, all combine to present an intricate overview of the desperate and often overwhelmingly sad lengths people will go to so they can remain in the United States. Kramer’s film closely mirrors other harrowing ensemble pieces such as Paul Haggis’s CRASH (2004) and Richard Linklater’s FAST FOOD NATION (2006). CROSSING OVER carefully presents many different sides of this complicated issue and also examines how coincidence and good fortune can play a part in achieving resident status. Ford is perfectly cast as the downcast lead character who battles with the moral and ethical ramifications of his job, and frequently gets too close to the people he is required to prosecute. Kramer skillfully interweaves each tale and allows just enough screen time to each of his characters, with Cliff Curtis leading the excellent supporting cast by playing an Iranian-American immigration official whose life is irrevocably altered by a series of tragic personal and professional occurrences. [More]
Starring: Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Cliff Curtis
Starring: Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Cliff Curtis, Jim Sturgess, Alice Eve, Alice Braga, Justin Chon, Summer Bishil
Director: Wayne Kramer
Director: Wayne Kramer
Screenwriter: Wayne Kramer
Producer: Frank Marshall, Wayne Kramer, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein
Composer: Mark Isham
Studio: Weinstein Company
Reviews for Crossing Over
Crossing Over crosses into the mythic realm of camp. What a waste. I still say it’s better than Crash, though.
You can be too right-on. And that's the problem with this smug Hollywood multi-strand drama about immigration that sweats self-righteousness from every pore.
Some stories are more convincing than others in this sprawling blend of thriller, melodrama and social drama.
This all sounds didactic and silly. It is. It's also highly watchable, and simultaneously complex, simple-minded, and deferential to the audience's base level of intelligence.
Maybe if he [director Wayne Kramer] had kept Crossing Over simpler, he would have made a less simplistic movie.
As with many multi-character pieces, it's somewhat unbalanced by its competing storylines, and its lapses into sentimentality seem inevitable, but Kramer deserves credit for taking on a touchy subject.
This focus on uneasy spiritual and political transformation runs into thematic banality. Although more than a set of patchwork, Crash-like homilies, Crossing Over is almost as didactic.
Sporadically provocative, but often convoluted and dull with undercooked messages and ideas.
I think this is really an exceptional film. I didn't find really a false note in the behavior of any of these characters.
There are good performances here, but the sheer number dilutes their power, leaving the movie a bit of a mess.
The subject of immigration is much too substantial to be treated as kitten play, leaving such thespian promise out to rot with material that suggests great intellectual stimulation, but only delivers yawns.
A completely disingenuous slice of awful storytelling, one-note performances, and manipulative melodrama that should not only not be seen, it should be boycotted.
A responsible message movie wrapped in an irresponsible exploitation flick that cries fire in a crowded theater.
Although it has moments of poignancy, his sledgehammer approach is sometimes off-putting and risible.
Crossing Over 'Crashes' the gates of illegal immigration with little new, or insightful, to add to the debate.
Writer-director Wayne Kramer insists on trying to tell us all the way through what we should feel. Yet, by the end, it's not clear what he's trying to say: are U.S. immigration laws unfair, unnecessary or badly enforced?
Crossing Over has hurtled into Crash territory, and the smash-up is not a happy collision.
Latest News for Crossing Over
June 08, 2009:
RT on DVD: Gran Torino, Crossing Over, Nobel Son Exclusive Look
This week on DVD, celebrate the big screen heroics of two former movie heroes (Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, Harrison Ford in Crossing Over) or watch Clive Owen and Naomi Watts... More...
March 01, 2009:
Harrison Ford does a very different sort of reluctant, discombobulated thinking man's action hero this time around, a kinder, gentler immigration cop not into raids, and mocked by his colleagues as an INS girlie guy. ![]()
More...
February 26, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Jonas Brothers Fizzles
This week at the movies, we've got teenybop pop (Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience, starring Jonas Brothers) and a video game adaptation (Street Fighter: The Legend of... More...
November 26, 2008:
Trailer & Poster review ![]()
More...
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