Once the plot mechanics kick into gear, it becomes increasingly difficult to take the movie seriously.
Comment
03/01/09
Crossing Over (2009)
16
%
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).... [More]
Starring: Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Cliff Curtis
Director: Wayne Kramer
Reviews for Crossing Over
Characters are stretched thin with only the most overstuffed dialogue to express themselves. As a result, the film is airless and petrified.
03/06/09
... feels an awful lot like the multicultural Crash, complete with its crisscrossing stories, heavy ironies and even heavier moralizing.
03/12/09
Crossing Over may hold some appeal for those who loved Crash, but this is a diluted cousin to a film that was overrated in the first place.
02/25/09
Crass, contrived, tackily salacious and politically loaded in the most insidious way, this dodgy piece of nonsense purports to be an ensemble, multi-stranded drama in the style of Traffic or Crash.
07/31/09
Top CriticThe performances are strong and everybody works hard to establish that his character isn't all good or all bad, but in the end you never quite care.
03/13/09
Being over-stuffed and heavy-handed are not even Crossing Over’s biggest problems. That dubious honour goes to an absolute failure to address its nominal subject-matter in any meaningful way.
07/31/09
Top CriticI get what Kramer was trying to say about immigration and nationalism (though it's been said before and better), but if I had my way I'd edit the film down another hour. At least.
07/03/09
A well-intentioned drama about complicated immigration issues that falters thanks to a wobbly screenplay.
02/27/09
The movie matches nicely with Ford's somnambulistic nonperformance -- they're both pokey, morose and don't really say much at all.
03/10/09
The only debate that Crossing Over will inspire is whether or not it's supreme awfulness is enough to qualify it for so-bad-its-good status.
02/26/09
The film is well-made and benefits from a very strong cast, but it's both overly worthy and rather pushy about its perspective.
07/31/09
It's tired, preachy and about as thought-provoking as a Blackpool hen party howling We Are The World on karaoke.
07/31/09
Crossing Over delivers its sanctimony with less hand-wringing and more fist-shaking, complete with lurid violence and periodically bared female flesh.
02/27/09
Top CriticThe film plods along until late in the game when its mystery story is resolved with three nested flashbacks by a filmmaker with a markedly unimaginative sense of cinematic storytelling.
03/01/09
The cast does uniformly fine work, but they and the film as a whole are hampered by Kramer's overreaching, overstuffed script.
03/08/09
This politically-minded ensemble drama's obvious attempts at being Traffic or Crash barely gets out of the garage before it stalls in neutral.
02/25/09
And if you thought Crash and Babel were preachy and awful, you ain't seen nothing yet.
02/24/09
Crossing Over seems to strain, with too many characters, too many story strands and too much of an effort to cover the bases.
03/12/09
Top CriticCrossing Over crosses into the mythic realm of camp. What a waste. I still say it’s better than Crash, though.
02/23/09
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
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