Drama about immigration in the United States, starring Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd.
When it comes to racial tensions, it seems no country on earth has more than the USA. The melting pot ideal became a tremendous project, but with some nasty side effects. Many directors have attempted to portray these tensions, with differing amounts of success, but Crossing Over from director Wayne Kramer, manages to explore the situation from a new angle. Rather than focus on our inner xenophobia, the film looks more at the desperate ways in which people will fight to become American citizens, and what becomes of them in the process.
Taking a Crash-like approach, using multiple storylines interwoven to create a web of drama, Crossing Over tells the story of several people attempting to legalize their stay in the U.S., and the officials involved in the process. Harrison Ford plays a sentimental Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, whose inner struggle between doing his job, and helping people creates an engaging visual spectacle. Ray Liotta plays a corrupt Green Card official, who abuses his position of power in order to exploit a young Australian actress who is about to be thrown out of the country.
Ashley Judd plays a lawyer determined to protect the children who become vulnerable during immigration cases, who ends up defending a fifteen-year-old girl who is about to be deported for making some controversial comments about terrorists during a class presentation.
It is an interesting film, one which will spark debates of the big questions. The storylines are all equally interesting, and the film was engaging throughout. It doesn’t have the electrifying ferociousness that a film like Crash has, but Crossing Over does avoid the temptation to become preachy and moralistic. We are offered the devastating effects of a system that has become tragic through bureaucracy and necessity.
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