Genres

Visitors Review

barryweir 2012-05-25 04:22:40

Extremely underrated

I am an immigration lawyer, albeit an English one. I started my careerdealing with asylum cases, family reunions and illegal immigrants. Overthe years I have gone on to act for students, entertainers, high networth individuals and corporate clients. There is little in this fieldI have not witnessed, from bigotry, to desperation, to the rich tryingto take advantage, from immigration officials acting to corruption inmy very own profession.I have to say that this movie explores the issues surroundingimmigration extremely well. Forced removal, failed attempts to cheatthe system, the motivations for naturalisation (which, as the moviesuggests, are not always for the joy of becoming a new citizen) and thegeneral drive of some people to find a better life for their family. Ialso used to be engaged to an Iranian so I was quite impressed with theportrayal of the Iranian family. I do not mean honour killings, that isnot a common thing in wealthy Iranian families, but what often can beis the concept of how one appears to others in the culture and theeffect of negative gossip on the reputation of the senior members ofthe family.Also, a lot has been made about the 9/11 "sympathiser" storyline.Indeed, there is one reviewer on here who refers to it as disgusting.How laughable. It is perhaps a shame that audiences, particularlyAmerican ones it seems, do not actually listening to the dialog. Whatthe character of Taslima says is that she does not agree what they didbut she understood the motivation. The movie then cleverly goes on toshow the conclusion jumping nature of some Americans, in this instancethe immigration official. At the end of the day Taslima's possibleterrorist sympathies are left ambiguous, neither confirmed ordisproved, and that is why I think a lot of less intelligent viewersjump to the same conclusion that the fictional official does by fillingin the blanks that they desire to see because they do not wish to havea dialog about a difficult subject.The only disappointing part of the movie for me was the Harrison Fordstoryline. I didn't feel that any part of it explored any particularimmigration related issue until the penultimate scene and I couldn'tunderstand the motivation behind Ford's character. However, that asideI couldn't fault this picture, either in it's script, it's acting orit's direction.

Rick Groen 2012-05-24 18:02:21

All we get is a mess of good liberal intentions loosely anchored to a mass of pure Hollywood hokum.

Edward Douglas 2012-05-18 00:31:03

This politically-minded ensemble drama's obvious attempts at being Traffic or Crash barely gets out of the garage before it stalls in neutral.

Philip French 2012-05-17 03:02:22

It's compassionate, decent-minded and highly watchable, but as angry, heavy-handed and overemphatic as a rubber stamp crashing down on an immigration form.

2012-05-11 18:19:26

DVD Crossing Over

This review is from: Crossing Over (DVD) Harrison Ford in another excellent role, showing his versatility as an all around actor of the highest caliber.

2012-05-11 06:40:31

Unflinching & Recommended

Well, let me say first that I'm continually disappointed by all the reviewers who have nothing better to do than pour venom on movies that have offended them somehow. I freely concede that bad movies can and do get made but I question the motivations of reviewers whose level of vitriolic reaction is shockingly disproportional to the actual offense any movie can realistically commit. Speaking for myself, I'm NOT going to waste readers' time ripping a movie I think is bad; no matter what I say everyone of us is going to have to endure an occasional clinker from time to time, and shouting my angry opinions at you is only going to make me look maladjusted at best.All of which leads me into my full-throated recommendation of "Crossing Over". Intrigued by the synopsis and cast, I took a chance on this and was powerfully rewarded with an outstanding ensemble drama that ought to provoke all sorts of reflection about our national immigration crisis as well as to stir our own thoughts about just what it means to be an American.First, GREAT performances by both the stars and the unknowns sharing the screen here. Harrison Ford is appropriately bedraggled and exhausted as a seen-it-all ICE officer whose conscience forces him to look beyond his enforcer duties and try to ameliorate at least some of the human damage his job inflicts. Check out how he's got his "Blade Runner" square scotch glass back in a similar alone-at-home scene, examining both case history evidence as well as his own moral compass. Ashley Judd & Ray Liotta are as sharp as ever, portraying a husband/wife on opposite ends of the immigration spectrum: Ashley as an immigration attorney, struggling to help families at the mercy of the Federal immigration sausage grinder, and Ray as a jaded & corrupt bureaucrat sinking to his personal lowest as a bent cog in that very system. Anchored by these seasoned pros, the rest of the cast dials into their frequency, powerfully depicting the endless sour treadmill of immigration cat-and-mouse as a tragedy diminishing the humanity of all trapped within its jaws.So many things grabbed me in "Crossing Over"; first was the dilemma of the illegal Saudi teenager who put her entire family at risk by provoking her high school class with an unbelievably inflammatory speech. YES she should have known better, but I almost immediately thought (and this was surely the directors' intent) "it is just the nature of teenagers to say and do risky, ill-considered things". Here we are challenged by the outrageously disproportional official response: would we approve of such a bare-knuckled official smackdown of a native kid who (for example) dropped a cherry bomb into the school's plumbing, or spray painted a swastika? Is it "justice" or is it brutish tyranny to respond so vindictively to teenage provocation like this? I must also comment quickly on the "honor killing" depicted here. "Crossing Over" depicts the problems of assimilation vividly through conflict boiling beneath the surface of an outwardly "model" Iranian family on the verge of naturalization. Children raised and grown to maturity here are going to be imprinted with values and cultural "frames" vastly different from those their parents (or elder siblings) were born into. It's an understatement to say that this will provoke intense generational conflict, and while these tensions(thankfully) seldom lead to murder, unfortunately such things are not impossible or unprecedented. Here again, outstanding ensemble acting dramatizes the conflict and its causes very effectively, sketching all perspectives without artificially tugging our sympathies one way or another.Implicit throughout "Crossing Over" is the question "what does it MEAN to be an American-a US Citizen-when so many outside our country are prepared to risk so much to live in the shadows among us, where they can all too easily find themselves targets of the nation they gambled EVERYTHING to be part of?" Obviously this is and should be a penetrating cause for self-examination on all possible fronts for each of us lucky enough to be Americans by birth. How DO the ideals our nation was founded on perpetuate and express themselves when challenged by outsiders who aspire to those same yearnings? No easy answers but you simply cannot see "Crossing Over" without these dilemmas tugging at your personal sense of who you are and what you contribute to our nation.It's fair to say that "Crossing Over" indeed owes a great deal in many respects to predecessors like "Crash (Widescreen Edition), Amores Perros, 21 Grams, or Traffic". However, each of those was a great, absorbing, and important cinematic work of art in every meaningful sense. Despite its stylistic similarities, I don't think "Crossing Over" should be diminished by comparison; indeed, if you haven't already, see all of them. "Crossing Over" never really had a fair chance in theaters to find an audience. I hope my praise can lead a few receptive readers to take a chance and be as amazed as I was by this arresting and consequential film.

2012-05-07 02:54:56

a sad movie about California, the land of the illegal alien

What I like about this movie is that it points out that not just latins/ Mexicansare coming across the southern International border. An Islamic girlwrites a report about suicide bombers and is deported when it is found that both sheand her parents are illegal.A beautiful Australian girl makes a deal with a government officialof a sexual favors sort to get a green card. A singer -song writerfinds his Jewish roots in order to stay in the country.Life and death on the streets of LA where groups from everywhere in the worldhave joined in a gold rush to come to the promised land of the USA!There is a perversion of the land of the free here...

Brian Orndorf 2012-05-06 08:26:17

The subject of immigration is much too substantial to be treated as kitten play, leaving such thespian promise out to rot with material that suggests great intellectual stimulation, but only delivers yawns.

GoneWithTheTwins 2012-05-04 23:15:03

Crossing Over Movie Review from The Massie Twins

Crossing Over is a jumbled mix of stories and ideas - like Crash,Babel, Fast Food Nation and even bits of Gran Torino piled together.There's a powerful underlying theme of inequality, the boundaries offreedom of speech and the inescapable abuse of power, but the majorviewpoints are forcibly shoved down our throats. The general publicwill most likely misinterpret the motif of being open-minded (toreligion, citizenship, naturalization and hopes of opportunity) withbitter anti-Americanism, which will prevent sympathy for almosteveryone in the film. It's a difficult concept to ingest, especiallywhen presented nearly hostilely. Crossing Over is a film that willultimately struggle to find an audience.Max Brogan (Harrison Ford) is an Immigration and Customs Enforcementagent (ICE) with a dangerous flaw - he has a heart and sympathy for thevery people he must track down and deport. His partner,Iranian-American Hamid (Cliff Curtis) awaits his father'snaturalization ceremony and appears dedicated to his job only to proveto his family how important it is to be American. As the duo runsroutine busts on illegal immigrants, several other stories are revealed- a defense lawyer (Ashley Judd) negotiates for a new family for anorphaned child and must also orchestrate the deportation method of afamily whose 15-year old daughter is accused of having ties toterrorism; a young Jewish man (Jim Sturgess) tries to use hisunpracticed religion to secure a job; and Cole Frankel (Ray Liotta)uses his position as a green card approval supervisor to force abeautiful Australian model (Alice Eve) into some compromisingpositions.The film begs us to be sympathetic with several groups of people, allwho have broken the law. Some of the offenses are easier to understand,to rationalize, but most derive little real accord - each case ispreceded and surrounded by corruption and gross misuse of power, butcondoning any of the actual crimes is never fully justified. It'sapparent that bad decisions and uneducated choices are the cause formost of the predicaments. If only fate had somehow intervened, perhapsthat would allow for more compassion. And Frankel, who deserves theleast amount of clemency, gets an odd and wholly unnecessary moment ofremorse - one that does little to alter his fate.Crossing Over is political and thought-provoking, but also muddled bythe ICE lingo and green card terms and the overabundance of characters.Its failure lies in the multiple interweaving story lines that couldhave been reduced to one or two. Hiding behind jobs, makeup andreligious ties sums up the not too complex personalities and themurder-mystery portion is evident from the start. The struggles ofUnited States citizenship, the impossibility of equality, theundeniable corruption of those in power, and the tragedy heaped on tothe point of comedy are all noble attempts at a moving premise, but anutter nosedive in the direction of entertainment. The film befittinglyconcludes on a note of how great America really is, while flashing backto human heads exploding under point blank gunfire.- The Massie Twins

Vadim Rizov 2012-05-04 09:13:35

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.

2012-05-03 05:20:45

Stick with this movie

I was not sure where this movie was going but I stuck it out and I'm glad I did. Well worth a watch

Nell Minow 2012-05-02 13:01:26

A well-intentioned but ham-handed exploration of U.S. immigration policies, this movie's message is undermined by its cardboard characters and clunky script.

James Berardinelli 2012-04-30 17:37:42

Crossing Over may hold some appeal for those who loved Crash, but this is a diluted cousin to a film that was overrated in the first place.

Peter Rainer 2012-04-29 22:56:20

It's a powerful opening to a movie that rapidly fractures into a hodgepodge of interlocking subplots showcasing immigration woes.

David Nusair 2012-04-28 20:58:58

Crossing Over has been surrounded by controversy ever since it wrapped up shooting way back in 2007...

jzappa 2012-04-28 10:28:45

Wayne Kramer's Contrived, Powerful, Strongly Acted Social Message Collage

The American Dream, and the eagerness to dwell without restriction inthe U.S., is something for which people are prepared to pursuetirelessly, die, forfeit their families, acquire criminally, take forgranted. We absorb much of time talking about the American Dream andhave too much distrust of those who want to live it. Wariness towardforeigners is so easily asserted even among the privileged that you'dthink they all came here for the gratuities and handouts. This canvasforges a collage, too condensed to be sure, of a fresh influx who camehere with copacetic intentions and will be beneficial residents if theyget the opportunity. Most of them will anyway. Some were in need ofrepair at home and have not a pleasant sail.I had an idea, but not the whole idea of just how hard it is to gainU.S. citizenship. It is difficult to settle in this country legally andlikely ill-fated to do it illegally. That's why I theorize we get someremarkable first-rate arrivals. It takes backbone, zeal and savvy toget into the United States either way. Many of those who arrive want tobetter themselves, and on that course, they will better us.Dealing with the border, document fraud, the asylum and green cardprocess, work-site enforcement, naturalization, the office of counterterrorism and the clash of cultures, this ensemble drama bums theformula of Crash to weave interlaced narratives about various incomers,their issues and their families. All of their lives interlock in someway, if only through U.S. immigration officials. Crash fashioned itsstructure quite instinctively, even if it didn't do its contriveddialogue the same favor. Crossing Over appears to draw pretty tight,with too many characters, too many plot threads and too much of anexertion to touch all angles. We face immigrants both recent andsettled, both legal and illegal, from Mexico, Nigeria, Bangladesh,Iran, England, Korea and Australia. It seems like a catalogue. Overtlya message movie, it is thus often contrived and so then oftenformulaic. There are interesting thoughts provoked by particularscenes, but often the characters involved in them are pawnsrepresenting ideological extremities. Nevertheless, it suggests ahumanist approach to the issues it presents.The joining constituents are two immigration officers, played byHarrison Ford and Cliff Curtis, who are perfect for their characters;an immigration go-between played with bold venality by Ray Liotta, andan immigration defense attorney played with Ashley Judd's audaciousgallantry. The parables feature a Mexican woman divided from her childin a bust; an Iranian family, much ingrained, which is about to benaturalized; a Muslim teenager who brings an FBI investigation byreading a forthright, though valid, paper about 9/11 in class; a Koreanteenager who is being squeezed to align with a Korean gang; anAustralian would-be actress; an atheist Jew from Great Britain whopostures as a teacher whose function is required at a Hebrew school,and a little Nigerian orphan who has been marooned in a holding centerand will be sent back to Africa and peril.Some of these stories are intriguing and some are emotionally powerful,but together they feel too forced. It's too systematic how theycoalesce, like the traffic on freeway interchanges seen in overheadshots that break up the sections. I was quite juiced up by Ford'sentanglement with Alice Braga's Mexican woman, who is taken away,begging him to reclaim her child from the baby-sitter. He plays a goodperson whose inner voice won't let him forget. And there's more to itthan that. It's an uphill battle for him to keep his work at work.Harrison Ford provides the steady axis in the story, but occasionallyit becomes so improbably overemotional, we're sidetracked. AshleyJudd's character supplies comprehension in the manner in which ourlegal system treats immigration, and Alice Eve's Australian actressshows what she is ready to do for Liotta's unethical official, whohappens to be Judd's husband. There is a foil between an Iranian fatherwho thinks of himself as a good Muslim and a daughter played by SummerBishil who thinks of herself as a good Muslim and a good American.Director Wayne Kramer has made two films previous: The Cooler, anuninhibitedly sexual, star-fueled gambling drama which has an offbeatview of being sweeping in scope and simultaneously zigzagging, so thatwhile we ride the face of the story, unforeseen turns are unfoldingbehind it; and Running Scared, an ultraviolent multi-ethnic actionthriller with the very same kind of comprehensively epic structure, anda spectrum-mixed visual tableau that yet still has a flavorfully dingyglaze. He reminds me a bit of Richard Kelly, writer-director of DonnieDarko and Southland Tales, whose stories are swollen with deep pocketsof peripheral goings-on that either throw it all out of balance orcreate the ultimate epic he imagined. Yes, Kramer's third film is farfrom perfect. If you're looking for credibility and defy artifice, youmight be against it. But sometimes movies are fascinating, in spite oftheir ultra-indulgence, and you want to keep on watching. This one, aslike his other films, and Kelly's, is like that.

b-malley 2012-04-25 06:56:07

It wasn't great, but you can't find anything bad about it.

Great acting, great plot, touching, moving and eye opening. I don'twork in the immigration field and am not in company of many people whohave had to deal with it. I can't say if the stories in this movie areexaggerations or are they the every day lives of immigrants trying toenter America. The writer definitively wanted to make a point, this isdefinitively a powerful one. Dealing not only with immigration issues for middle eastern families,but also Australian and Japanese; this movie provides insight on thedifficulties with immigration. It holds somewhat a comparison to theTom Hanks movie where he was stuck in an airport terminal for months. This movie is simply a must see. Well done.

Cole Smithey 2012-04-24 12:07:58

A sub-par knockoff of Paul Haggis' "Crash," writer/ director Wayne Kramer's L.A.-based dramatic tapestry is a threadbare yawner.

Lou Lumenick 2012-04-23 02:42:30

This is a movie with the courage to examine the pressing issue of whether hot blond Aussie starlets are sleeping with government agents -- whom they meet in fender benders -- to get green cards.

dmford 2012-04-22 15:48:49

Way too biased

I'm 100% opposed to illegal immigration and have no sympathy whatsoeverfor anyone who puts himself or herself above our nation's laws.Therefore I found this movie so totally biased in favor of illegals andtheir gaming of the system that I could barely sit through it.When the Australian girl was giving the desk clerk a hard time eventhough the girl didn't have any receipts, I thought, "Just deport hernow!" Life is all about choices, and if you make bad choices, don'texpect sympathy! It's too bad when kids are caught up in their parents'bad choices but that's the parents' fault, not the fault of the U.S.The Moslem parents should have thought ahead of time about thepotential effects their illegal actions could have on their kids. Andhow idiotic does a person have to be to make a speech in support of the9/11 hijackers?! Whether a person comes to this country to be a model, to work in afactory, or to teach in a Jewish school, that person has theresponsibility to think first about the laws of the country he or sheis going to and what steps must be taken to proceed in accordance withthose laws. This movie tries to make all the illegals seem like poor,downtrodden or disadvantaged foreigners who "just want a better life."Where's the part about taking responsibility for one's actions?And the whole bleeding-heart subplot about an attorney wanting to adopta child that her spouse has never met and has no interest in is absurd.Who would do that? I agree with those who have said that it's another liberal Hollywoodsocial-engineering "feel good" film...the kind that makes the rest ofus feel even more disgusted with illegals than we already do.