Crossing Over
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: February 27, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
38
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
15
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Crossing Over is so eager to go for the emotional jugular that it never quite forges an enlightening point of view. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubVadim Rizov
Tied together with endless, flattening shots of L.A.’s cloverleaf freeways, Crossing Over is often simplistic and occasionally lugubrious, but it's rarely boring. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Enough things in Crossing Over work to keep the film from becoming a bore, but this is a definite step down from Kramer's past efforts, "The Cooler" and "Running Scared." Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Kramer takes on a hot, unwieldy topic in Crossing Over -- the dream that immigrants have of U.S. citizenship and the nightmare of achieving it, especially with shortcuts. I'm sure Kramer will be picked to pieces for trying something while Hollywood crap climbs the box office ladder. There are all kinds of nightmares. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Some of these stories are fascinating and some are heartbreaking, but together they seem too contrived. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Harrison Ford - in his best role in years - and Cliff Curtis are the main reasons to see the film. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Crossing Over is not a success but make no mistake: There is great drama to be found in these streets. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
There is undoubtedly a good movie in the varied experiences of American newcomers. But it would need to involve sagas more urgent and more original. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
A disappointing picture that suffers from all manner of ills: Both the direction and the dialogue are stiff and awkward, and Kramer -- who also wrote the script -- crams too many not-believable-enough subplots into the movie's "Crash"-style construction. Yet Crossing Over is an interesting failure. Read full review
50
PremiereStaff (Not credited)
The controversial subject matter will undoubtedly hit close to home for many people, but a few genuinely uncomfortable scenes will either provoke the audience into serious thought or just cause them to leave the theater angry. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The movie expresses honest concern for the plight of so many newcomers to America, legal or illegal. What it lacks is moment-to-moment credibility. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
If Crossing Over is less self-congratulatory than "Crash" about confronting its designated problem, it's just as inept at dramatizing the complex ways that problem unites and divides us. Here every cause is something you can wear around your neck. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Had Crossing Over chosen to tell one of them well, rather than seven badly, it would have made for a fine movie. Instead, all we get is a mess of good liberal intentions loosely anchored to a mass of pure Hollywood hokum. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
A busy, Crash-like complex of LA stories, each hammering home the injustice of our immigration law. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Crossing Over is a result of the sledgehammer approach writer-director Wayne Kramer (Running Scared, The Cooler) takes to his subject matter -- the same heavy-handed tactics that earned "Crash" three Oscars. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Some will win and some will lose their encounters with unbending American bureaucracy, but all deserve better, which should leave viewers eager for an even-handed take on this issue crossing over into disappointment. Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
For all the bludgeoning insistence of Kramer's contrived plots and blunt direction, there's not much conviction to the outrage. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Writer-director Wayne Kramer adds what could be called mainstream threads to his messy script, but the result is simplistic across the board. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
If Mr. Kramer's outrage felt honest, his film would be easier to respect. But time and again, he undermines his own righteousness by pumping up the violence and stripping down his talent. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
The latticework of social meaning that makes up Crossing Over is ultimately a flimsy structure that pays lip service to liberal values while only occasionally inventing anything of dramatic significance. Read full review
40
EmpireSimon Braund
Being over-stuffed and heavy-handed are not even Crossing Over’s biggest problems. That dubious honour goes to an absolute failure to address its nominal subject-matter in any meaningful way. Read full review
38
New York PostLou Lumenick
Here comes Wayne Kramer's Crossing Over, a bid to create the "Crash" of illegal-immigration dramas. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
There are a bunch of other clunky immigrant subplots (the Jews get a comic one, the Turks a scary one), but it isn't until the massacre–cum–civics tutorial in the liquor store that Crossing Over crosses into the mythic realm of camp. What a waste. I still say it's better than "Crash," though. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterStephen Farber
The film plays like a garish melodrama that reproduces the most ham-fisted, polemical aspects of "Crash." Read full review
30
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The way the picture dwells almost exclusively on cinematically exploitable elements -- gangbanger crime, prostitution, honor killing, terrorism paranoia -- gives it a sordid patina that even the classy, able thesps can't offset. Read full review
30
Village VoiceScott Foundas
And so it goes, with Kramer--who doesn't really seem to like people very much--failing to muster even the superficial empathy the makers of the similarly programmatic "The Visitor" and "Rendition" showed toward their own cardboard-cutout imperiled illegals. Read full review
30
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
As Crossing Over makes its patronizing points, by way of two-dimensional characters and billboarded plot points, it recalls other, better movies that dealt with the same subjects far more deftly. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
A mess. Read full review
20
SlateDana Stevens
All of its plot threads are equally dreadworthy. Read full review
10
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Forced, heavy-handed and overdone, it's a pretend serious film that offers crass manipulation in the place where honesty is supposed to be. Read full review
10
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Wayne Kramer's interlocking saga of immigration in 21st-century America definitely crosses over, from workaday mediocrity to distinctive dreadfulness. Read full review
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