Crossing Over
An Immigrant Song Out of Tune
Trailers & Mo | Official Website
Traffic, minus the drugs and gratuitous color schemes +
Babel, but with Australian NSFWness
instead of Japanese + the beyond schmaltzyness of
Crash =
Crossing Over, which is sadly not the big screen adaptation of
John Edward's contacting the dead hocus pocusness. Yep, he we go again with yet another criss-crossing character overload, this time around tackling the topic of illegal immigrants in the LA area and their desire to become US citizens, and it is by far the weakest outta the group mentioned above. So if the thought of them films drive you more batty than William Peter Blatty, you may want to deport yerself from going to see director
Wayne Kramer's expansion of
his own short film of the same name. The subject matter is close to Kramer's heart, as he was a South African turned naturalized USer, and his passion for this project (does that make it a passion project?) is obvious on-screen, but it's thighly doubtful that you'll be able to share in any of his feelings
There's too many stories being randy the rammed down our throats at once, and a majority of them are either not interesting (cutie pie
Jim Sturgess pretending to be a deeply devout Jew), underdeveloped (
Ashley Judd feels sorry for some motherless African kid) or something anyone wants to see anymore on film (
Ray Liotta playing his 8321763175th bazillion creepazoid). The main vignette revolves around an immigration agent with a heart (
Harrison Ford), who goes out of his way to
stop the Russians from unleashing alien powers from Mayan temples help helpless hot illegals (like
Alice Braga) and deal with the Iranian old-world ways of his partner (
Cliff Curtis, aka 'that guy')'s family. His misadventures ultimately come to a head at a swearing in ceremony at the film's end, and unintended hilarity ensues. Luckily, amongst all the turds, there was one tale that shined through. It was about a young Muslim girl (
Summer Bishil, proving she's no one-hit wonder after the hard to watch but MUSS SEE
Towelhead) and how the gov-mint wants to deport her after she delivers a class speech about identifying and understanding, but not necessarily supporting, the motives behind the 9/11 hijackers' actions. That coulda been a mos solid movie on its own right (and wrong), but instead the story getz mostly lost amongst all the
Crashing and
Babeling
Traffic noise
Poster Child Molester: tell
Harrison's eyes to stop scaring us. and can someone tell casting directors to stop hiring Ray Liotta
Verdictgo:
Very Little Merit But No Stikin BadgesCrossing Over opens in select theaters today
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed...
