SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

duskovic I stumbled across this movie on TV, a few minutes after it started. After awhile I realized that the movie had been made by the people who made Crash, but I was wrong. It had the same kind of pattern and similar dramatics, etc., so I was surprised that whereas Crash was a hit with the critics, Crossing over was a flop. Who know why, probably something to do with packaging and selling.It was on again tonight and I had it on while doing housework. I still found the drama punchy, but the idea of people absolutely craving to be in the US a bit silly. What, do they wanna be mugged or go obese? But apparently, there are opportunities in the US; you can open a burger joint, a pizza place, a coffee shop, etc., that mostly fail (80% in the first year). And yes, as somebody commented, the idea of being deported to Australia (a better country than the US) is amusing, but the girl deportee wanted to become an actress in the US, where good films like this one fail but junk like Transformers hits the stars.

kai ringler this movie deals with a very sensitive subject to me,, illegal aliens and border crossings,, I will try and leave personal feelings out of it long enough to give a review.. Harisson ford plays a Border Patrol agent, his job is to stop the flow of illegal aliens crossing the border every single day.. also in the picture we have Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd, both who were very good, as our story progresses we see many different characters throughout the movie,, some get caught trying to cross over the border, and some make it,, Ray Liotta's character a bit shady he makes a deal with one of the pretty girls he busted, in order for her to get a green card,, she has to keep having sex with him. Harisson Ford meanwhile does something i'm sure a real life border patrol offieer wouldn't do,, he hides a family a starts try ing to help them stay in the country till they can get approved for a visa,, there are many pros and cons to this movie,, I liked the movie because it did present how things are dealth with at the Border Crossing,, and all of the bureaucracy that happens,,

Desertman84 Crossing Over is an independent film about illegal immigrants of different nationalities struggling to achieve legal status in Los Angeles.It deals with the border, document fraud, the asylum and green card process, work-site enforcement, naturalization, the office of counter-terrorism and the clash of cultures. The ensemble cast includes Harrison Ford and Ashley Judd together with Ray Liotta,Jim Sturgess,Cliff Curtis,Alice Braga and Alice Eve.It was written and directed by Wayne Kramer.Every day, a new batch of immigrants comes flooding into Los Angeles in search of the American dream and every day the price of that dream rises exponentially. As the desperation of these newcomers continually tests the humanity of Los Angeles immigration enforcement officers, the face of a 21st century L.A. gradually begins to take form.The story takes harrowing look at life among illegal immigrants and the immigration enforcement agents whose job it is to ensure that the U.S. borders remain secure. Anyone who has seen the movie,Crash will likely appreciate this film that is a multi-stranded and a heavy handed film that explores the issues surrounding immigration and US citizenship with the involvement of many characters.Unfortunately unlike the said film,Crossing Over lacks subtlety since many of the events seemed contrived and superficial.But nevertheless,we are treated with great performances particularly that of Harrison Ford.Also,it remains a thought-provoking film.

MBunge Crossing Over is one of those movies where a bunch of individual lives intersect. There's basically two ways that kind of film works. It either has an intricate plot like a spider web, where the characters and their separate stories seem to crossover at almost random but when you step back, you can see that it all forms a pattern. Or, the various story lines are linked together through the plot in a perfunctory manner and the real connection between them is how each one represents a different facet of the message the motion picture is trying to get across. That requires the movie to have a complex and coherent argument. Crossing Over tries to do both and succeeds at neither.The various threads of this flick are…1. Veteran immigration agent and bleeding heart Max Brogan (Harrison Ford) tries to help a young Mexican woman (Alice Braga) who is separated from her son when she's deported.2. Brogan's partner Hamid Baraheri (Cliff Curtis) is caught between the celebration of his father (Marshall Manesh) finally becoming an American and his U.S. born sister (Melody Khazae) living a life that defies the family's conservative Muslim traditions.3. A beautiful Australian actress (Alice Eve) is forced to have sex with an immigration official (Ray Liotta) in order to get her green card.4. The wife of the immigration official (Ashley Judd) is trying to help a little African girl caught up in the system while her immigrant mother dies of AIDS.5. An atheistic Australian Jew (Jim Sturgess) tries to pass himself off as devout so he can a religious worker exception and remain in the country.6. A 15 year old Muslim girl (Summer Bishil) reads an essay in class that sympathizes with the 9/11 terrorists and attracts the attention of an FBI agent (Jaqueline Obradors) who threatens to separate the non-legal girl and her parents from her American born brother and sister.7. A young Asian kid (Justin Chon) whose whole family is about to be naturalized is caught up in a gang and filled with resentment toward the United States.Here's the problem with Crossing Over. Plotwise, the only two sub-stories that connect in any meaningful way are 2 and 7. 1 intersects with 2 and 3 is linked to 4 and 5 in only the most superficial fashion and 6 only tangentially touches 4. Brogan trying to help the Mexican woman has nothing to do with the challenge facing his partner. In the others, the characters may know each other but that's it. What's happening to them does not interact or associate in any significant manner. When you step back, the film isn't like a spider web. It's like a spider web after a rock has been thrown through it.So, the only way this movie can work is if these genuinely disparate tales all play different roles in communicating some theme or moral to the viewer. However, the only thing articulated by Crossing Over is "America's immigration system sucks". That blunt and simplistic proposition leaves no room or dimension for each of the individual stories. Instead of each subplot saying something distinct and different about immigration, with the dramatic resonance between them all coalescing into an intelligible and provocative polemic, it's all simply a bunch of stuff that happens.Now, all 7 subplots are fairly well performed, though the one with Brogan's partner wimps out at the end and I have to admit, it was almost impossible for me to have any sympathy for the plight of the Muslim teenager after she reads that essay sympathizing with the 9/11 attackers. But as isolated anecdotes, they're well written and well performed. Alice Eve also gets naked and that's quite pleasant to look at. None of it, however, adds up to anything more than "America's immigration system sucks".I suppose if that crude and obvious observation blows you away, you might enjoy Crossing Over. If not, this is the sort of film you won't hate, but when it ends you'll wonder if there wasn't something better you could have done with your time.