Decent Crossing

It’s no secret that Wayne Kramer‘s Crossing Over (Weinstein Co., 2.27), which I saw last night, has had a difficult (some would say agonized) post-production history. The integrity of Kramer’s vision violated up the wazoo, all kinds of re-editing and arguing about which cut works better, Sean Penn ‘s footage being cut from the film over his discomfort with an Iranian honor-killing subplot, etc.

Generally speaking a film that goes through this much grief and second-guessing ends up feeling muddled and compromised all to hell. I’m not saying that Crossing Over is a masterwork — it’s not. It uses a familiar strategy — five or six story lines woven into a social-issue tapestry — in an attempt to be an illegal-immigrant Traffic. But it’s really Crash. To some, I realize, that might sound like a heartless thing to say, but Crossing Over isn’t half bad within the boundaries of its scheme and particularly given what Kramer had to deal with. The bruises and abrasions show, but it has a certain integrity. You can feel the efforts of a strong impassioned director trying like hell to make it work.

Crossing Over needed to be rougher and longer and less contrained. More probing and more exposition would have helped with some…okay, many of the characters. There’s an abbreviated, pruned-down feeling to the narrative, suggesting that a certain amount of nervy, rude material may have gone by the wayside.

It’s basically an in-and-out thing, but it catches a good groove about 30 minutes in and pretty much holds onto it right to the end. There are several scenes that work well, and one or two that are serious gut-slammers.

There’s a curiously touching moment when a sleazy INS officer played by Ray Liotta suddenly becomes the Heartbreak Kid — and what his character says and does is unexpected and rewarding in a roundabout way. There’s a grocery-store robbery-and-shootout scene between Cliff Curtis and a gang of Asian gang-bangers (and particularly a terrified young recruit whom Curtis faces down) that flirts with ridiculousness but is finally riveting and daring as hell.

I’m not going to say any more, but Crossing Over is by no means a wipeout. It has its moments and intrigues and curious sidelights. It just should have been longer and more wild-ass — more willing to offend. Too much second-guessing went into it, and I’m sorry for that. And I wish Penn hadn’t bailed.

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51 thoughts on “Decent Crossing”

  2. Coming from Wayne Kramer, I would not expect this movie to be terrible. How many decent or better-than-decent films have had nightmarish post periods with the Weinsteins?! (And it is a Weinstein Co. movie, not a Miramax movie, Wells.)

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  6. Maybe Penn is a GENIUS for not being in this troubled yet admirable film. No one really knows except for Kramer and Penn and until speak…whatever.

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  9. How can you write a review for this without even mentioning Harrison Ford’s performance. Isn’t this supposed to be his return to “acting,” an atonement for turning down the Michael Douglas role in Traffic years ago?

    Oh yeah, just tried to watch Pride and Glory. Terrible. I only made it about 30 minutes it, which is astounding cause Norton and Farrell are two of my favorite actors. The DP should never be allowed near a camera again.

    Reply ↓

  10. Weird, also just watched it. I didn’t think PRIDE AND GLORY was terrible, I was just depressed by how amazingly rote the whole thing was. The worst was how hard Jennifer Ehle tried for a movie like that. And how they randomly changed around words so Noah Emmerich didn’t literally have to say things like “This ends tonight!”

    Reply ↓

  11. Personally, I thought Jon Voight was fantastic in Pride and Glory, some of the best work he’s done in a while.

    While the film did seem awfully familiar, there was nothing specifically wrong with it.

    Still worth seeing.

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  12. lazarus as our man would say I was mezzo-mezzo on Voight. I thought he was decent but I think it did indicate he’s still interested in acting, and therefore is capable of still doing great work. Also I’ve mentioned it before, but am I the only one who thinks he and Walken are starting to look more and more like each other? The pompadour and the creeping jowls are so similar. Which is odd because they both used to be among the more beautiful men around, and looked nothing like each other.

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  13. Agreed about Jennifer Ehle. She was in an entirely different and far better film that just happened to turn in to P+G.

    The only other convincing thing about it was the way Colin Farrell wears his hideous jumper. He did it to better effect in Intermission though.

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  14. ‘Pride and Glory’ is okay — problem is that you can stay a step ahead of the damn thing until the end, which just doesn’t resonate at all.

    I’m starting to think cop movies should have been outlawed after ‘Prince of the City’…

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  15. I dunno, I think cop movies have a pretty high rate of return compared to other worn-out genres. For every PRIDE & GLORY or WE OWN THE NIGHT (which is legitimately decent with moments of excellence) you have an LA CONFIDENTIAL or a TRAINING DAY, not to mention THE DEPARTED.

    Reply ↓

  17. Chase Kahn wrote:

    That’s true, Burma — after seeing ‘Taken’ yesterday, I think I’d vote to outlaw the vigilante genre.

    I liked the review that compared TAKEN to Paul Schrader’s HARDCORE with Steven Seagal in the lead.

    Neeson managed to make bricks from straw, while Famke Janssen did her best in the Teri Hatcher role.

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  19. It’s basically an in-and-out thing, but it catches a good groove about 30 minutes in and pretty much holds onto it right to the end.

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