Crossing Over

Both race and religion always seem to be hot topic issues. Once one group has found its way to acceptance in America, another group seems to get the heat, and films are always willing to cash in on the controversy. Even in the days of silent cinema, there were films created to sway the opinion of the public to feel a certain way about a racial predicament. We've come a long way from that era, though. The 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation features the courageous endeavors of The Ku Klux Klan. Like I've said, we've come a long way. At this point in time, we find ourselves at Crossing Over.

We start off with the hard-boiled Max Brogan (Harrison Ford), a cop in LA who has a hard time facing the fact that he has to send illegal immigrants to immigration services. Then we meet Denise Frankel (Ashley Judd), an immigrants' rights lawyer, and her husband, Cole Frankel (Ray Liotta). Cole works in immigration and distributes green cards; a power he abuses by making Claire Shepard (Alice Eve) become his sex slave in order to get one. I would keep going about all of the characters, but, to be completely honest, there are just way too many. This became especially irritating when they tried to pull a Crash
by attempting to tie all of the characters together.

I like controversial films, but, even with controversy at its grittiest like in something like South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, there has to be a certain level of sophistication behind the ridiculousness. Despite the fact that Crossing Over had something to say, it fell short due to situations that just seemed far too unlikely to be happening within a connected group of people.

The grocery store scene stands out in my head. An Asian gang, one member of which is Yong Kim (Justin Chon), who is about to have his family naturalized, is robbing a grocery store, and it quickly turns to a shoot out. Hamid Baraheri (Cliff Curtis) comes in and takes out the entire gang except for Yong. He proceeds to give Yong a less-than-riveting speech about the lesson he learned about how great it s to be naturalized. It was just too far-fetched for Hamid to know that Yong was an immigrant with a mask on and that he could reason with him when they both had guns and Yong had a hostage.

Aside from some of the problems with the film, Crossing Over does deliver in a few ways. When it tries to be funny, it is really very funny, specifically at the point where the Jewish character Gavin Kossef (Jim Sturgess) is interviewed for citizenship based on his work in jobs dealing with Judaism. The entire film, it is made obvious that he

doesn't know anything about it and he has to say a specific prayer for a rabbi. Gavin just starts to go at it not knowing anything in Hebrew. It was very well-developed, and Gavin was probably my favorite character in the movie despite his small amount of air time.

Another great scene was a tear-jerker with Taslima Jahangir (Summer Bishil) who wrote a contentious paper about 9/11. Because of her paper, in which she claimed that Americans should try to understand the attackers' intent, she was reported to the FBI and considered a terrorist threat. The scene is her saying goodbye to her mother and siblings without her father. She is being deported with only her mother, because her siblings are legal citizens and one parent has to stay with them. Her father was told that his attending the goodbye would be considered suspicious and could risk the entire family being deported. Taslima does some serious crying, and it really set the mood right. The whole idea of being separated from your family is something that hit deep with me because of how important my family is to me and made the scene notably powerful.

Even with its good qualities considered, Crossing Over just doesn't stand out. It has a good message, but the way that message is portrayed is too out there to be believed. If you really want to see this movie, watch Crash
. If you've seen Crash
, watch Gran Torino. If you've seen them both, watch them together in a race movie double feature, and if that just seems tedious, go see Crossing Over.

Movie Grade: C

Synopsis:

Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create – in 21st century L.A.