Crossing Over

Director: Wayne Kramer
Screenwriters: Wayne Kramer
Starring: Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Jim Sturgess, Cliff Curtis, Summer Bishil, Alice Braga
Running time: 113 mins
Certificate: 18

There is about as much off-screen drama surrounding Crossing Over, Wayne Kramer's third feature film, as there is on it. This immigration-themed offering was shot in 2007 and shelved for two years while conflict allegedly erupted between Kramer, combustible studio head Harvey Weinstein and Sean Penn, whose role was withdrawn completely after he voiced concerns with a particular plot point. Through all the chaos and post-production bedlam, it's a miracle that Kramer has finally managed to wrestle his story into something releasable. The compromises the filmmaker has had to make along the way, however, are evident in the finished product.

Crossing Over is an "issues" movie, and because of that watching it often feels like being on the receiving end of a lecture. Harrison Ford takes on the role of immigrations and customs enforcement officer Max Brogan, a tired, worn out cop with understanding for the plight of the illegal aliens he is tracking. Free from the creaking "where's my wife" heroics of his recent movie roles, Ford is determined and resolute as an ageing gunslinger. It's his best performance in years, so it's a shame that he's a minor piece in an unwieldy jigsaw.

The interlocking tales feature Ray Liotta as a smarmy citizenship applications official who takes Alice Eve's Aussie actress for a ride, a secular British Jew (Jim Sturgess) using his faith as leverage for a green card, an Iranian family whose patriarch is on the verge of naturalisation, a Korean teen slipping into gang culture and a 15-year-old Muslim girl (Bishil) who recites an essay in class expressing empathy for the 9/11 hijackers. These separate strands uncoil patiently before binding together for a police procedural, a bloody shootout and a misjudged 'God bless America' finale.

Portmanteau films tend to suffer the same problems as comedy sketch shows - more often than not they're hit and miss. Summer Bishil delivers the drama's most heartbreaking performance as her family is ripped apart. Similarly, Jim Sturgess is on good form as a musician who provides some much-needed humour as his story wraps up. Ford's cop Brogan, on the other hand, may be the story's fulcrum, but he is cut down to a mere plot cog - his involvement with Alice Braga's Mexican factory worker appears to have been snipped in the editing room. Elsewhere, the Alice Eve sex-for-a-visa segment plays out like a tawdry daytime soap opera and Ashley Judd is completely wasted as Liotta's altruistic wife.

Kramer leans heavily on contrivance and coincidence, but where ensemble movie experts Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson overcome this by creating rich emotional layers with their subjects, the Crossing Over director doesn't have the stylish directorial flourishes or precision with character to make his disparate strands work. Crossing Over builds purposefully before derailing completely in its finale with a credibility-straining grocery store shootout and an honour killing. Its overriding message, that becoming a naturalised American is the solution to all immigrants' problems, is highly objectionable.


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