GazerRise Fantastic!

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Tonino It is one of the best films I've seen this year, which proves that low- budget films can be as good as lavish Hollywood ones. Of course, it is an homage to Ken Annakin's "Across the Bridge" (1957), which, in its turn, was an adaptation of Graham Greene's short story. It also has a banker who commits embezzlement and flees to Mexico, even though the banker in the newer film is a much more likable person - at least, Aidan Quinn makes him that. Both bankers achieve redemption in the end, but in very different ways, and this is where all the similarities end. Aidan Quinn, Mario Van Peebles and Andy Garcia are very good matches for their roles; actually, the whole actors' ensemble is impressive. Somebody described this flick as an action movie; in fact, it is not, even though tension builds up towards the end. Another reviewer doubted that the FBI budge could make such a profound impression on Mexican police and mercenaries; my take on it is, it surely can, especially if you don't forget that the events take place very close to the US border. Overall, it is a very good film, and I was pleasantly surprised with its quality (which includes camera work). It comes highly recommended.

MBunge Everything that's wrong with this movie is right there in the title. It should have been called either "Across the Line" or "The Exodus of Charlie Wright". No film should ever have a colon in its title unless it's a sequel and even that is pushing it. Yeah, I know it seems like a nit picky thing, but just read it again. If you're the sort of person who would be intrigued by something called "The Exodus of Charlie Wright", do you really need the stuff before the colon to sell you? If you're the sort of person who responds to something punchier like "Across the Line", are you going to impressed by the pretentious stuff after that? This title reads like someone crossed a Chuck Norris/Steven Seagal action flick with an art house rumination on personal discovery. It indicates that either the people who made this motion picture didn't think hard enough about what kind of story they were telling or that there was a struggle over it which was never resolved.Charlie Wright (Aidan Quinn) is a financial con man who steals billions of dollars through a Ponzi scheme. When FBI agent Hobbs (Mario Van Peebles) moves in to arrest him, Charlie disappears like Houdini from a milk can and resurfaces in Tijuana. He's searching for a woman and her child, but plenty of people are looking for Charlie besides the FBI. There's Mexican crime boss Jorge Garza (Andy Garcia), who needs Charlie's ill gotten gains to pay off a debt to the Mexico City cartel, and Jorge's younger brother Gabriel (Danny Pino), who's determined to save his family until he simply gives up. There's also Damon (Luke Goss), a hit-man from the Russian mob who teams with a trio of mercenaries to get to Charlie before the Garza's do because Charlie scammed a hundred million dollars off a pair of Russian mobsters. As Charlie turns to an insecure, needy, middle aged love muffin (Claudia Gerri) for information, Agent Hobbs' gay subordinate (Jordan Belfi) walks out of a Tijuana gay bar and sees the fugitive fraudster on the street, bringing Hobbs down to Mexico to complete the starting line up in the Charlie Wright Derby.This movie is so typical of early 21st century cinema in so many ways. Not just because a decent amount of money got flushed down the rathole to produce yet another direct-to-DVD release that will soon vanish beneath the waves of new releases every week. It's that Across the Line: The Exodus of Charlie Wright shines on the surface but it rotten underneath. This thing looks good. It's shot well and is nicely paced. The dialog is above average and the cast is more than capable. The concept of the story is also solid. Underneath it all, though, is a plot that is a huge minefield of one poorly thought out and illogical storytelling mistake after another.Let's start with the basics. Why should anyone care what happens to Charlie Wright? He's a thief and the awful nature of his theft is repeatedly emphasized, although the only specific victims every presented are the Russian mobsters. If you're trying to tell the story of a bad man's redemption, you have to give people some reason to want to see that bad man redeemed. But you can't diminish his "badness" by presenting his only visible victims as even worse people because it not only undermines the whole redemption them, it cripples any interest in whether the FBI catches him or not. It's the same thing with Jorge Garza. He's presented as a crime lord who's in trouble entirely because of his own actions, so why should I care what happens to him? Why should I care if Damon and his crew grab Charlie or wind up dead? There are either no answers to these questions or the answers are feebly self-negating.And then there are two essential points in the story that are so unsupported and unsupportable that it's like the Almighty Plot Hammer has been replaced with the Almighty Plot Jackhammer. At the start, Agent Hobbs' boss (Corbin Bernsen) is enraged at Charlie's escape and is 100%, absolutely, totally and utterly committed to tracking Charlie down and bringing him to justice. T hen when Hobbs brings him the tip about Charlie being in Tijuana, his boss not only completely disregards it but actually calls off the whole search for Charlie. And at the end, when there's a literal Mexican standoff between the FBI, the Garza crew and Damon's team over Charlie, the cold blooded mercenaries and the Mexican gang simply quit and walk away. Now, maybe you can explain the mercenaries walking away because the risk is not worth what they've been paid, although writer/director R. Ellis Frazier clearly thinks Damon making that decision is a big deal even though Frazier's done nothing in this film to justify such importance. But Gabriel Garza is facing the murder of his older brother and the destruction of his family…and he merely says "Screw it" and gives up? What?I've noticed that each new generation of filmmakers is better and smarter at how movies look and sound and are edited and all of those technical questions. Simultaneously, they're getting worse and dumber about the most basic elements of storytelling. The result is movies like Across the Line: The Exodus of Charlie Wright that are great on first glance but fall to pieces if you think about them for 5 seconds. This is not worth your time.

cmahoney9-120-805838 It is the biggest story of the last five years, yet H-wood will not touch Bernie Madoff because he sold them out and he sold out his own people.Instead we get films like Across The Line, a shaky shot that takes Bernie's story and dumps it on an anglo guy seekng redemption.Shaky camera equals tension in this one - to the director that is...to the audience it plays like an episode of 24.Low budget...original dramaesque.The real story of a billion dollar ponzi is right there: The criminal Madoff, the son who pays the sins of the father. Is Hollywood brave enough to tell it...only if they change the name of the man.

karen-smith-795-591463 Perhaps the symbolism was heavy handed, but I thought this was a really good low budget movie. What I walked away with was three men, at the end of their prospective careers, each having a decision to make about their next step. And the casting was superb, all men who have had good careers in their own right, but have, for whatever reason, dropped out of the limelight of blockbusters. Andy Garcia never disappoints, but his acting is incredible in this movie (compare his delivery in this movie as a beaten man vs. Oceans Eleven). But I was really surprised at Aidan Quinn, whom I have acknowledged as a good actor, but he really did a great job in this movie. Cinematography was OK, the acting had some gems, there was no good use of sound or music, but the layered story of three men facing their end was compelling. Like I said, given the budget, I thought they did a good job.