Crossing Over
by Wayne Kramer
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DVD details
Actor: Ashley Judd, Cliff Curtis, Harrison Ford, Jim Sturgess, Ray LiottaDirector: Wayne Kramer
Brand: Universal Music Video Dist.
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Running Time: 113 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-06-09
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 1000610
Studio: Weinstein Company
Product features:
- CROSSING OVER (DVD MOVIE)
DVD Reviews of Crossing Over
DVD Review: Unflinching & Recommended
Summary: 4 Stars
Well, let me say first that I'm continually disappointed by all the reviewers who have nothing better to do than pour venom on movies that have offended them somehow. I freely concede that bad movies can and do get made but I question the motivations of reviewers whose level of vitriolic reaction is shockingly disproportional to the actual offense any movie can realistically commit. Speaking for myself, I'm NOT going to waste readers' time ripping a movie I think is bad; no matter what I say everyone of us is going to have to endure an occasional clinker from time to time, and shouting my angry opinions at you is only going to make me look maladjusted at best.
All of which leads me into my full-throated recommendation of "Crossing Over". Intrigued by the synopsis and cast, I took a chance on this and was powerfully rewarded with an outstanding ensemble drama that ought to provoke all sorts of reflection about our national immigration crisis as well as to stir our own thoughts about just what it means to be an American.
First, GREAT performances by both the stars and the unknowns sharing the screen here. Harrison Ford is appropriately bedraggled and exhausted as a seen-it-all ICE officer whose conscience forces him to look beyond his enforcer duties and try to ameliorate at least some of the human damage his job inflicts. Check out how he's got his "Blade Runner" square scotch glass back in a similar alone-at-home scene, examining both case history evidence as well as his own moral compass. Ashley Judd & Ray Liotta are as sharp as ever, portraying a husband/wife on opposite ends of the immigration spectrum: Ashley as an immigration attorney, struggling to help families at the mercy of the Federal immigration sausage grinder, and Ray as a jaded & corrupt bureaucrat sinking to his personal lowest as a bent cog in that very system. Anchored by these seasoned pros, the rest of the cast dials into their frequency, powerfully depicting the endless sour treadmill of immigration cat-and-mouse as a tragedy diminishing the humanity of all trapped within its jaws.
So many things grabbed me in "Crossing Over"; first was the dilemma of the illegal Saudi teenager who put her entire family at risk by provoking her high school class with an unbelievably inflammatory speech. YES she should have known better, but I almost immediately thought (and this was surely the directors' intent) "it is just the nature of teenagers to say and do risky, ill-considered things". Here we are challenged by the outrageously disproportional official response: would we approve of such a bare-knuckled official smackdown of a native kid who (for example) dropped a cherry bomb into the school's plumbing, or spray painted a swastika? Is it "justice" or is it brutish tyranny to respond so vindictively to teenage provocation like this?
I must also comment quickly on the "honor killing" depicted here. "Crossing Over" depicts the problems of assimilation vividly through conflict boiling beneath the surface of an outwardly "model" Iranian family on the verge of naturalization. Children raised and grown to maturity here are going to be imprinted with values and cultural "frames" vastly different from those their parents (or elder siblings) were born into. It's an understatement to say that this will provoke intense generational conflict, and while these tensions(thankfully) seldom lead to murder, unfortunately such things are not impossible or unprecedented. Here again, outstanding ensemble acting dramatizes the conflict and its causes very effectively, sketching all perspectives without artificially tugging our sympathies one way or another.
Implicit throughout "Crossing Over" is the question "what does it MEAN to be an American-a US Citizen-when so many outside our country are prepared to risk so much to live in the shadows among us, where they can all too easily find themselves targets of the nation they gambled EVERYTHING to be part of?" Obviously this is and should be a penetrating cause for self-examination on all possible fronts for each of us lucky enough to be Americans by birth. How DO the ideals our nation was founded on perpetuate and express themselves when challenged by outsiders who aspire to those same yearnings? No easy answers but you simply cannot see "Crossing Over" without these dilemmas tugging at your personal sense of who you are and what you contribute to our nation.
It's fair to say that "Crossing Over" indeed owes a great deal in many respects to predecessors like "Crash (Widescreen Edition), Amores Perros, 21 Grams, or Traffic". However, each of those was a great, absorbing, and important cinematic work of art in every meaningful sense. Despite its stylistic similarities, I don't think "Crossing Over" should be diminished by comparison; indeed, if you haven't already, see all of them.
"Crossing Over" never really had a fair chance in theaters to find an audience. I hope my praise can lead a few receptive readers to take a chance and be as amazed as I was by this arresting and consequential film.
Description of Crossing Over
Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones films) is on a quest for justice as an immigrations agent investigating the case of a missing illegal. In a cross-fire of crime and bureaucracy, fraud and murder, he must race against time to try to save a family from becoming collateral damage in the fight for the American dream. Critics rave, ?Harrison Ford is terrific. An engrossing, thoroughly entertaining movie with great performances from a first-rate ensemble cast? (Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com). Co-starring Ashley Judd (Twisted), Ray Liotta (Smokin? Aces), Jim Sturgess (21), and Cliff Curtis (10,000 BC); Crossing Over will keep you riveted until the final mystery unfolds.Stills from Crossing Over (Click for larger image)
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