Crossing Over (2009) Wayne Kramer

Production Budget: unknown

Worldwide Gross: $3 million

Subsequent Earnings: $1.7 million

A few notes on this movie before starting.  The movie’s release was pushed back from 2007 to 2009 with 20 minutes cut out.  The director wanted the full movie but the Weinsteins threatened to release it direct to video if he did not edit the movie down.  Sean Penn actually had a supporting role where he investigated an Honor killing.  But when the Weinsteins thought that would be too provocative so the whole subplot (and Penn’s performance) was entirely removed.  This footage is also not on the DVD either.

So consider this movie almost like a direct to video version of Crash but about immigration.  I’m sure many of you already believe Crash to be direct to video quality, but let’s table that for the moment.  My comparison is more with the story structure and how we have many (almost too many) plot threads with interconnected characters.

I am only going to go over the major plot threads because if I outlined every uneventful subplot I would need a flowchart and maybe another hour.  Probably the most screen time goes to Max Brogan (Harrison Ford) who is an ICE agent.  He actually gets two plots since he is so special.  The first is about Ford deporting a mother whose child is still in the US.  Brogan helps the child and is trying to locate the mother who disappeared crossing over again.  The second plot thread is about him investigating an honor killing…sorry, that’s too provocative.  The more sensitive terminology they used in the recut version is a murder involving honor.  Yeah, that’s much better.  Anyway, Brogan’s partner Hamid (Cliff Curtis) is somehow implicated in it.  Another thread deals with a 15 year old Middle Eastern kid who writes a school paper where she defends the 9/11 terrorists, gets labeled a terrorist and is deported.  There is a plot thread where Ray Liotta is blackmailing a woman for sex who wants a green card.  Cause when you think sleazy slimeball, you hire Ray Liotta.  Jim Sturgess tries to get a green card pretending to be a Jew (???).  Yeah, I don’t get that either.  And Ashley Judd is trying to adopt an African child.  Ok that one is a big waste of time.  Let’s move on.

Movies structured like this with an agenda are so easy to read.  Just picture the absolute worst thing happening to these people to manipulate the audiences emotions, give a few happy moments (like Judd getting the adoption), and your statement movie is complete.  You can pretty much guess though that this person is gonna die, that one is getting raped, and that one is getting screwed over in more ways than one.  And maybe it’s just me, but I sensed a bit of misogyny in this movie.  With the exception of Judd’s microscopic role, all the women in this movie are either helpless creatures or targets of physical or sexual abuse.

The storyline about the 15 year old and her school paper is the one I was scratching my head at the most.    For one, which teacher would approve a presentation by a student saying 9/11 was a necessary thing.  I nearly got detention for peppering in some jokes to my paper about my summer vacation.  It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer spread Communist propaganda as Santa and he was moaning about the fact he didn’t think it was that big of an issue.  To which Mickey screams “Communism!?  You didn’t think Communism was that big of an issue!?”  The storyline really tries to paint the girl as being innocent and just expressing her First Amendment rights.  Well, in theory that works, but we learn a few things which cause us to pause.  She is not as completely innocent as the movie would have you believe (she is proven to be associated with extremists/possibly terrorists).  I could also get into a long discussion about the law and the responsibility of visitors but why bog down the issue.  It just didn’t work for me.

The other sub sub plots are just dull to me.  The Sturgess/Liotta plot lines have no real climax or tension to them.  They just appear and peter out by the end.  I could also argue the movie is telling a messed up message by showing the two storylines of Sturgess and Liotta as a kind of parallel.  Buuuut it could be argued it was incidental and I don’t want to read more into the movie than there already is and I would just complicate things more, etc, etc, etc.  Then we have stories like with Judd and another one I haven’t even brought up about some Asian gangster.  Those plots have nothing to do with anything and they just bog the movie down with pointless filler.  Really, if the director had to cut some time out, he should have removed those threads instead.

By far the best storyline is the Brogan one.  Not only does Ford’s character get the most character development, but he also gets the more interesting storyline of finding a killer.  I know Ford gets a lot of shit for seemingly being a grumpy old man but I still like him as an actor.  He makes me genuinely interested in this character and what motivates him which I can’t say for many characters in this movie.  He also gets a nice Jack Ryan-esque “How dare you sir” type speech near the end which I liked.  I also really liked the performance of Cliff Curtis who plays the psychologically tortured partner of Brogan.  It was a better performance than this movie deserved.

I know I should have been more pissed off by this movie but for some reason I just didn’t care enough.  Maybe I was in a good mood and I am forgiving because of Harrison Ford but I simply thought this was a mildly bad movie and not a sh*tty one.  There were some good performances and some scenes that I did like.  Overall it is a poor attempt to emulate Crash and is not worth your time.