Review of Crossing Over (2009) by Tom M — 28 Mar 2009

The ugly stretches of LA highway prominently featured from the very start of this not-quite gritty, cliche ridden drama about immigration highlights its central theme that the American dream may not be all that's it's cracked up to be. The highway images also serve as diverging crossroads to tell the multiple stories that somehow connect if not too conveniently.

The film is never ever dull. It's too schematic to be so. But it sets up a series of original premises and then reduces them to television type season enders complete with one cliffhanger following another. Naturally each scenario gets resolved jsut enough to move on , leaving us wondering. This connect the dots strategy keeps you entertained but hardly ever enlightened.

Reports claim that Sean Penn was once in this film but that his scenes were all cuts. Not sure quite as to why. Can it be the unforgiving premise that hoping for a green card comes with a less than appealing price, Still CROSSING OVER ultimately ends up opting for sentimentality over taking a courageous stance.

Unlike other films of its kind, CRASH and TRAFFIC comes to mind, this broad canvas vision does neither seems artistically ingrained nor poetically refined. Ford does a commendable job underplaying his part leading a large cast that swirls its ways around issues without ever letting us truly think for ourselves.

Despite its shortcoming, it is hard to resist watching CROSSING OVER from start to finish if only to realize that each story line will conclude exactly as expected. That there are no surprises whatsoever perhaps mirror what one should really be prepared for when thinking of CROSSING OVER.