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Crossing Over
EMAILPRINTMGM, The Weinstein Company

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Wayne Kramer
Directed by: Wayne Kramer
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 27, 2009
DVD: June 9, 2009
Running Time: 140 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for pervasive language, some strong violence and sexuality/nudity
Starring Harrison Ford, Jim Sturgess, Ashley Judd, Alicia Braga, Alice Eve, and Ray Liotta
The US offers hope—but that often comes at a price. Many can earn citizenship legally through a lengthy bureaucratic process, but others find themselves out of luck in a country where virtually anything can be bought. Sex, violence and betrayal become their currency. Some wait in line for permission to enter the U.S. while others take matters into their own hands. (The Weinstein Company)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Crossing Over is so eager to go for the emotional jugular that it never quite forges an enlightening point of view.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Vadim Rizov
Tied together with endless, flattening shots of L.A.’s cloverleaf freeways, Crossing Over is often simplistic and occasionally lugubrious, but it's rarely boring.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Kramer takes on a hot, unwieldy topic in Crossing Over -- the dream that immigrants have of U.S. citizenship and the nightmare of achieving it, especially with shortcuts. I'm sure Kramer will be picked to pieces for trying something while Hollywood crap climbs the box office ladder. There are all kinds of nightmares.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Enough things in Crossing Over work to keep the film from becoming a bore, but this is a definite step down from Kramer's past efforts, "The Cooler" and "Running Scared."
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Some of these stories are fascinating and some are heartbreaking, but together they seem too contrived.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Harrison Ford - in his best role in years - and Cliff Curtis are the main reasons to see the film.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Crossing Over is not a success but make no mistake: There is great drama to be found in these streets.
Read Full Review >Premiere Staff (Not credited)
The controversial subject matter will undoubtedly hit close to home for many people, but a few genuinely uncomfortable scenes will either provoke the audience into serious thought or just cause them to leave the theater angry.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
There is undoubtedly a good movie in the varied experiences of American newcomers. But it would need to involve sagas more urgent and more original.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
A disappointing picture that suffers from all manner of ills: Both the direction and the dialogue are stiff and awkward, and Kramer -- who also wrote the script -- crams too many not-believable-enough subplots into the movie's "Crash"-style construction. Yet Crossing Over is an interesting failure.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The movie expresses honest concern for the plight of so many newcomers to America, legal or illegal. What it lacks is moment-to-moment credibility.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
If Crossing Over is less self-congratulatory than "Crash" about confronting its designated problem, it's just as inept at dramatizing the complex ways that problem unites and divides us. Here every cause is something you can wear around your neck.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Had Crossing Over chosen to tell one of them well, rather than seven badly, it would have made for a fine movie. Instead, all we get is a mess of good liberal intentions loosely anchored to a mass of pure Hollywood hokum.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
A busy, Crash-like complex of LA stories, each hammering home the injustice of our immigration law.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Crossing Over is a result of the sledgehammer approach writer-director Wayne Kramer (Running Scared, The Cooler) takes to his subject matter -- the same heavy-handed tactics that earned "Crash" three Oscars.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Some will win and some will lose their encounters with unbending American bureaucracy, but all deserve better, which should leave viewers eager for an even-handed take on this issue crossing over into disappointment.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
For all the bludgeoning insistence of Kramer's contrived plots and blunt direction, there's not much conviction to the outrage.
Read Full Review >Empire Simon Braund
Being over-stuffed and heavy-handed are not even Crossing Over’s biggest problems. That dubious honour goes to an absolute failure to address its nominal subject-matter in any meaningful way.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The latticework of social meaning that makes up Crossing Over is ultimately a flimsy structure that pays lip service to liberal values while only occasionally inventing anything of dramatic significance.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
If Mr. Kramer's outrage felt honest, his film would be easier to respect. But time and again, he undermines his own righteousness by pumping up the violence and stripping down his talent.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Writer-director Wayne Kramer adds what could be called mainstream threads to his messy script, but the result is simplistic across the board.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Here comes Wayne Kramer's Crossing Over, a bid to create the "Crash" of illegal-immigration dramas.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Scott Foundas
And so it goes, with Kramer--who doesn't really seem to like people very much--failing to muster even the superficial empathy the makers of the similarly programmatic "The Visitor" and "Rendition" showed toward their own cardboard-cutout imperiled illegals.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
There are a bunch of other clunky immigrant subplots (the Jews get a comic one, the Turks a scary one), but it isn't until the massacre–cum–civics tutorial in the liquor store that Crossing Over crosses into the mythic realm of camp. What a waste. I still say it's better than "Crash," though.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber
The film plays like a garish melodrama that reproduces the most ham-fisted, polemical aspects of "Crash."
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
The way the picture dwells almost exclusively on cinematically exploitable elements -- gangbanger crime, prostitution, honor killing, terrorism paranoia -- gives it a sordid patina that even the classy, able thesps can't offset.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
As Crossing Over makes its patronizing points, by way of two-dimensional characters and billboarded plot points, it recalls other, better movies that dealt with the same subjects far more deftly.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Forced, heavy-handed and overdone, it's a pretend serious film that offers crass manipulation in the place where honesty is supposed to be.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Wayne Kramer's interlocking saga of immigration in 21st-century America definitely crosses over, from workaday mediocrity to distinctive dreadfulness.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.7 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jay H. gave it a6:
A bit too dramatic but it is a sincere effort. The entire cast is good. It doesn't always convince however. Decent but nothing outstanding.
Paul N. gave it an8:
Somewhat downbeat and a bit too politically correct; but the performances and interlacing storylines hold your attention. Worth a look for the thinking moviegoer.
Elijah T. gave it a3:
A total waste of time. A generic political drama with no soul. NEXT!
