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Crossing Over (2009)

Director: Wayne Kramer

Time Out rating

Average user rating

4 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

This egregious, vaguely Altmanesque moral panic multi-strander marks a case of diminishing returns for director Wayne Kramer (‘Running Scared’, ‘The Cooler’). It views like a neurotic instructional video for immigration etiquette in the US, with the numerous interweaving tales all culminating in bathetic, ‘oh the humanity!’-type denouements that don’t make for particularly engaging ‘political’ cinema. In the mix we’ve got an Australian soap star with visa troubles, sleazy green card bigwig Ray Liotta , solemn and conflicted immigration enforcement officer Harrison Ford and a young Asian teen being indicted by the Feds for her history essay on the 9/11 attackers. 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.

Author: David Jenkins

Time Out London Issue 2023, May 28 - June 3, 2009

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User reviews of this film

Steve said...

Posted on Aug 03 2009 12:46 I actually thought the film was pretty good. OK, so the story lines could have perhaps been fleshed out a bit, but generally I thought they worked pretty well. The performances were great and I thought the camera work was brilliantly executed.

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Jaxx Pilterton said...

Posted on Jul 31 2009 16:28 It's Time Out innit - all intellect and no fun.

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jacks said...

Posted on Jul 30 2009 16:03 Dude...chill out. Bangladesh is Asia...

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Parthna said...

Posted on Jul 30 2009 10:03 I don't believe you even saw this film. Probably just read a whole bunch of Rotten Tomatoes reviews. It's not the Asian kid who has visa problems for writing a pro-911 terrorist essay, it's the Bangladeshi girl. The Asian kid is caught up in gang activity prior to his naturalization ceremony. Your review is so generic and condescending that I suggest intrigued readers seek out other perspectives on a very decent film (despite rumored Harvey Weinstein interference with the cut). One of the better Harrison Ford performances of recent, as well as excellent turns from Cliff Curtis, Jim Sturgess and Summer Bishil as the Bangladeshi girl.

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