If you loved Crash and Babel, you may also like Crossing Over.  If you don’t…see something else.

Crossing Over
Directed by Wayne Kramer
Starring Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Jim Sturgess, Ashley Judd
**

With its all-star ensemble cast and overlapping storylines that all revolve around an Important Social Issue—in this case, immigration—Wayne Kramer’s Crossing Over is begging to be described as the next Crash or Babel.  And since both of those movies did win significant critical acclaim (plus a handful of Oscar nominations) it’s understandable that Kramer would want to follow in their footsteps.  But speaking as someone who disliked Babel and detested Crash, I can’t say that I’m thrilled by the idea of a filmmaker making a pale imitation of two films that aren’t very good in the place.  Now had Kramer used Steven Soderbergh’s sprawling drug-trade drama Traffic as his primary model, the result might have been very different.  That movie and Syriana, Stephen Gaghan’s complex look at U.S./Middle East relations, are among the few films of this type that successfully marry provocative social commentary with good storytelling.  They also avoid the kind over-the-top melodrama that plays a big role in Crash, Babel and now Crossing Over.  Like racism and whatever the hell Babel was about, immigration is an emotionally charged issue, but there’s a big difference between dealing with those emotions honestly and shamelessly going after the audience’s tear ducts through a series of improbable and manipulative situations.

Harrison Ford heads up Crossing Over‘s cast as Max Brogan, a world-weary veteran agent with the Los Angeles division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  Participating in his umpteenth raid on a local warehouse, he arrests a young woman (Alice Braga) who pleads with him to help reunite her with her son.  He’s too late to stop her from being deported, but he does find the boy and takes him back home to his grandparents in Mexico while he waits for word on the missing mother.  Meanwhile, Max’s Iranian-American partner Hamid Baraheri (Cliff Curtis, who actually hails from New Zealand) is dealing with a schism amongst his family.  His sister Zahara (Melody Khazae) is flouting their traditional ways, wearing cleavage-baring outfits and carrying on an open affair with a married man.  With their father set to be naturalized as an American citizen in a few days, Hamid and his younger brother are being pressured to bring Zahara back into the fold.  When she and her lover unexpectedly turn up dead, Max can’t help but wonder if his partner knows more about the crime than he’s letting on.

Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd in Crossing Over

These twin plots alone would be enough for one movie, but Kramer continues piling on the competing narratives.  Other subplots revolve around an aspiring actress from Australia (Alice Eve), who pimps herself out to a married customs officer (Ray Liotta) for her green card; a Korean teenager (Justin Chon) that’s being bullied into joining a local gang; a kindly immigration lawyer (Ashley Judd) who contemplates adopting a Nigerian orphan; and a high-school student (Summer Bishil) who is investigated by Homeland Security after she gives a presentation in class expressing sympathy for the 9/11 hijackers.  Perhaps the strangest and least consequential storyline involves a British musician (Jim Sturgess) who pretends to be an observant Jew in order to get his visa application approved.  He’s also been carrying on a flirtation with the Aussie actress, but throws her out of his apartment in disgust when he learns that she’s been dancing the horizontal mambo in order to gain U.S. residency.  Maybe that’s the moral of the story: never trust an Australian girl, because she’s probably just into you for your citizenship.

To be fair, the first half-hour or so of Crossing Over isn’t that bad.  Where Crash and Babel piled on the melodrama from the first frame, Kramer initially keeps the drama grounded in a recognizable reality.  In her brief scenes, Braga delivers a strong performance as a mother sick with worry over the fate of her child, while Curtis exudes a quiet authority that gives Ford’s well-established gravitas a run for its money.  But once the plot mechanics kick into gear, it becomes increasingly difficult to take the movie seriously, particularly when confronted by scenes like the one where Hamid encounters the Korean teen in the midst of a liquor store hold-up and delivers an impassioned soliloquy about what it means to be an American that sets the boy straight.  You almost have to admire Kramer for writing a scene that cheesy without a trace of irony.  Crossing Over believes wholeheartedly in what its saying–it’s just a shame that the film doesn’t express itself in a more convincing way.

Verdict: Skip It