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.
Comment
07/31/09
Crossing Over (2009)
16
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
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
And if you thought Crash and Babel were preachy and awful, you ain't seen nothing yet.
02/24/09
Maybe if he [director Wayne Kramer] had kept Crossing Over simpler, he would have made a less simplistic movie.
03/13/09
Top CriticThis 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.
02/25/09
Sporadically provocative, but often convoluted and dull with undercooked messages and ideas.
02/28/09
There are good performances here, but the sheer number dilutes their power, leaving the movie a bit of a mess.
03/25/09
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.
06/10/09
A completely disingenuous slice of awful storytelling, one-note performances, and manipulative melodrama that should not only not be seen, it should be boycotted.
03/13/09
A responsible message movie wrapped in an irresponsible exploitation flick that cries fire in a crowded theater.
03/12/09
Less like watching a movie than solving an equation.
04/24/09
Crossing Over 'Crashes' the gates of illegal immigration with little new, or insightful, to add to the debate.
03/23/09
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?
07/31/09
Crossing Over has hurtled into Crash territory, and the smash-up is not a happy collision.
02/26/09
Top CriticA sub-par knockoff of Paul Haggis' "Crash," writer/ director Wayne Kramer's L.A.-based dramatic tapestry is a threadbare yawner.
02/28/09
All of its plot threads are equally dreadworthy.
02/26/09
While the film certainly has some viable, provocative points to make about the US's attitudes to migrants and the labyrinthine horrors of getting citizenship, it lacks the subtlety and eloquence it really needs to succeed.
07/31/09
Crossing Over crosses into the mythic realm of camp. What a waste. I still say it’s better than Crash, though.
02/23/09
The whole thing's about as enjoyable as a holiday to Guantanamo Bay. Less a movie and more a two-hour finger wag.
07/31/09
The whole exercise feels exploitative.
07/31/09
Any one of these stories, if properly fleshed out and shorn of contrivance, would have made for a perfectly serviceable film. Instead, we have lots of hysterical little bits of nothing much.
07/31/09
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
More...
What’s Hot On RT
Other News
Fresh Links
Featured
40 Best Films of the 2000s
Last week, Moviefone offered us their worst films of the 2000s. Now see their 40 best!
Worst Hollywood Remakes of the Decade
Movieline gets bravely swept away with the recycled refuse of the 2000s.
Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Twitter
Get all the latest movie updates, reviews, interviews and features here.
Competitions
Win Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 prize packs
We're giving away a bunch of stuff from the upcoming Squeakquel.
IGN RSS Feeds