Crossing Over |  | Director: Wayne Kramer
Actors: Harrison Ford, Ashley Judd, Ray Liotta, Jim Sturgess, Cliff Curtis
Studio: Weinstein Company
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.97
Buy Used: $3.08
as of 2/9/2010 17:32 EST details
You Save: $16.89 (85%)
New (35) Used (24) Collectible (3) from $3.08
Seller: goHastings
Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 3586
Format: Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 113 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 1000610
UPC: 796019820264
EAN: 0796019820264
ASIN: B001UDS4BS
Theatrical Release Date: 2009
Release Date: June 9, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 06/09/2009 Run time: 140 minutes
Amazon.com
The director of The Cooler tries a bigger canvas: Crossing Over is Wayne Kramer's take on nothing less than the vast subject of illegal immigration, coming at the topic from a dozen or so directions. Hefting the most star power is Harrison Ford, scurrying about as an L.A. Immigration and Customs officer whose conscience is sore from having trundled so many illegals back over the border--now he's worried about the child of a particularly vulnerable woman (Alice Braga). Cliff Curtis plays Ford's partner, an Iranian-American whose family is not as assimilated as his casual manner might suggest. There's a bit of pulp swagger in other sections of the picture, as Kramer tries to channel his inner Sam Fuller: for instance, an Immigration official (Ray Liotta at his piggiest) coerces an Australian actress (Alice Eve) into a sex-for-green-card affair, and an adolescent Arab-American girl (Summer Bishil, from Towelhead) gives a cheeky speech at school that puts her family under suspicion as possible terrorists. Other strands of this scenario aren't as urgent, as Ashley Judd dreams of adopting the African child she's tending, and Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe), as a British non-believer, tries to convince Immigration authorities of his commitment to working at a Jewish school. The movie's single best scene has him "auditioning" to convince a rabbi of his commitment to Judaism, a funny moment that also carries an echo of the history of Jewish exodus. The movie has a tendency to bash from one thing to the next, too neatly connecting its Crash-like plotlines, like a really spirited first draft of a better movie. --Robert Horton
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 28
 Message Movie Mashup January 23, 2010
Richard Hine
Maybe I'm just naive, but I like to think that if you gave me a couple of days, a few sandwiches and sodas, a Flip UltraHD Camcorder, 120 Minutes (Black) plus the participation of Harrison Ford, Ashley Judd, Ray Liotta, Alice Braga, Jim Sturgess, Alice Eve, Summer Bishil and a talented ensemble, I could make a movie that could gross more than the $500,000 in North American box office receipts generated by CROSSING OVER.
The movie itself is pretty watchable and occasionally thought-provoking. It's got a quality cast and great production values. But ultimately it comes across as a paint-by-numbers message movie that tries to check all the boxes and connect all the dots in ways that muddle and mix-up the message. Of course, that may be the point. But the questions the movie asks ultimately asks could provoke just as much discussion written on cards in a board game. Is it better to sleep with an INS agent to get your green card? Or to fake religious devotion and persecution? Did you come to America because you believe in its freedoms and ideals? Once here, would you risk deportation by engaging in the free speech you had heard so much about?
Similarities to movies such as BABEL, TRAFFIC, CRASH. FAST FOOD NATION and even GRAN TORINO echo throughout. And clearly something went wrong in the execution and/or marketing of this movie. It was shot in 2007 and only released in 2009, with scenes including Sean Penn edited out along the way.
If you're not in the mood for a board game, there are worse things to do than watching and pondering the questions posed in CROSSING OVER.
 Pretty distorted and mixed up views, the movie has no direction January 17, 2010
W. freeman (fairmont, wv)
Well people in the U.S do need to ask themselves where the bounderies and borders lie with this country and others. Is it right for the U.S to play World Police and take out young innocent women and children just to liberate a country or attempt to establish a stable government for a country that has had political chaos for 1000's of years, certainly not. Is it right that Arab(Middle eastern) terrorists took out the world trade centers with our own planes in an attempt to justify there believes and kill a few thousand of our men, women and children, absolutely not.So who's wrong and who's right, well no one really and this film really doesn't touch base on either one being right or wrong. But on the other hand Ashely Judd defending a young girl who gets up in front of the class of her high school, saying that her Arab brothers were justified in doing what they did to us, and we just don't understand is down right appalling. Also the areas of our so called prejudice against illegal aliens in this country was jumbled up and mismatched as well. The film overall was pretty much a mess, it was interesting to certain issues touched on, but they have already been done in several other films. Mexican gangs, Arab Terrorists, and people crossing our borders into the U.S is a problem, but this movie does nothing to rectify and of these problems, but does nothing more than either glorify them or just confuse the viewer on who thinks what. Fords performance and even presence in the film felt more like he was just going through the motions and showed no real interest in the topic at hand. I think he's becoming desperate to keep himself on the big screen since he's aging and not a lot of people find him very interesting anymore. So the movie itself takes itself way to seriously and literal. I agree that we should protect our country, and to some extent other countries have a right to do so as well. But also there is a creative balance on how to handle it. You wouldnt want someone coming into your home and trying to change what you believe, but also you wouldnt go terrorize the world to force it down someones throat, or start killing people to prove it. So when you watch the film, you may find yourself extremely confused, i know i did, and i didnt like it.
P.S-bringing up the whole 911 issue by bashing a veiled Arab girl in a class room was just ridiculous, no teacher or school would tolerate such outbursts, no matter what race the child was. Very ludicrous. And yes someone like that should be flagged(Ashley Judd) shame on you for defending such trash. Also yes American can be just as bad, look at Vietnam, most of the time we are just to stupid to realize we have been terrorists to, Heroshima anyone?
social drama lacks impact January 4, 2010
Roland E. Zwick (Valencia, Ca USA)
**1/2
Here we go again - yet another of those multi-storied social dramas set in the racial and cultural crazy-quilt that is modern-day Los Angeles. Falling somewhere on the quality scale between the profound "Grand Canyon" on the one end and the dreadful "Crash" on the other, "Crossing Over" relates a half dozen or so interlocking tales centered around the issue of immigration.
Harrison Ford is a compassionate INS agent who goes beyond the call of duty to help an undocumented single mother and her young son; Ashley Judd is an immigration defense attorney who wants to adopt a young African girl who's already spent 23 months in a detention center, the victim of a mountain of bureaucratic red tape; and Melody Khazae is a Muslim high school student whose seeming sympathy for the jihadist cause may make it impossible for her to remain in the country. And as if to prove that not all targets of immigration policy are ethnic minorities, Alice Eve is a blonde Australian actress who's having a dickens of a time renewing her visitor's visa. Also in the cast is Ray Liotta as an unprincipled, opportunistic adjudications officer who agrees to smooth over the actress`s visa-renewal problems if she`ll only sleep with him.
Though no one can deny that it starts off with the best of intentions, "Crossing Over" leaves much to be desired both as a human drama and as a social document. In an effort to weave the disparate narrative strands into a coherent whole, writer/director Wayne Kramer has intercut his scenes with endless birds`-eye-views of the city, a technique that does little to enhance the fluidity of the storytelling. And despite the best efforts of a dedicated cast, the movie never inspires us to care about the people or issues it`s laying out before us. In fact, "Crossing Over" errs in the opposite direction of the overwrought "Crash" by rarely displaying any genuine passion for its subject, seeming instead to be simply going through the motions to make its points.
Perhaps as a result of the limited screen time allotted to each character, no one individual emerges from the pack to engage our sympathy or interest. The characters feel more like pawns in a polemicist's exercise than fully-rounded people in their own right. And there's a scene involving a convenience store holdup that is every bit as contrived and credibility-defying as anything in "Crash."
But, hey, give "Crossing Over" a little credit. It's the only movie I know of that gives a nod to the Internet Movie Database (known by most of us as imdb). Surely, it gets some points for that!
 Thoughtful movie for our times December 26, 2009
elena j (Chicago)
This movie is an extremely thoughtful comment on the immigration issues facing this country today. With skillful directing, this movie takes us inside the lives of U.S. Immigration agents and several legal and illegal immigrants, telling each of their stories from a unique perspective. Harrison Ford takes a nice turn as a conflicted immigration agent torn between duty and morality, who sees each immigration story as unique and shows more heart than most of his fellow officers. What I find most interesting is that this almost semi-documentary script gives us an intimate look into the lives of those on all sides of the immigration debate, and shows us why we need to be a bit more tolerant in our attitudes on a case-by-case basis. The movie also paints a beautiful picture of the cultural diversity of those who come to this country, and how far some are willing to go in order to remain here. It also reminds us what American citizenship often means to those who weren't born here. It is a very thought-provoking movie.
Crossing over DVD December 25, 2009
Star Warrior (Alhambra, Cailforna USA)
This story could be true, and people suffer to reach freedom. The film finish leaving a empty feeling. Harrison Ford acted as a dead pan face Immigration officer. it is a good movie.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 28
|
|
|
