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.
Comment
07/31/09
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.
Theatrical Release:31-07-2009
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
Top CriticBeing 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 CriticThe 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
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
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
Top CriticIt's compassionate, decent-minded and highly watchable, but as angry, heavy-handed and overemphatic as a rubber stamp crashing down on an immigration form.
08/04/09
While the finished product is by no means a disaster, it does bear the marks of a film whose lofty aspirations have been tarnished by uneven storytelling and simplistic moral conclusions.
02/17/09
The whole exercise feels exploitative.
07/31/09
Top CriticSome stories are more convincing than others in this sprawling blend of thriller, melodrama and social drama.
07/31/09
For anyone who felt that Crash was too subtle and self-effacing, I recommend Crossing Over, a multi-stranded, heavy handed exploration of the issues surrounding immigration and US citizenship.
07/31/09
Top CriticAny 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
Top CriticWell-acted but increasingly either melodramatic or just plain dull.
07/31/09
At once ambitious, familiar in its multi-stranded storytelling, and suspect in its underlying politics.
07/31/09
Hampered by wayward direction and a skin-deep script, this won’t be following Crash to the Academy podium. If you loved Haggis’ Oscar victor, you might squeeze an iota of enlightenment out of Kramer’s copycat melodrama.
07/31/09
The film manages to sustain a general air of dull preachiness without ever having much to say for itself.
08/04/09
Although it has moments of poignancy, his sledgehammer approach is sometimes off-putting and risible.
07/31/09
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.
07/31/09
Crossing Over builds purposefully before derailing completely in its finale.
07/31/09
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
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. 
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February 26, 2009:
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November 26, 2008:
Trailer & Poster review
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