The Harrison Ford Blogathon – Crossing Over (2009)

This is the final of three reviews for Michael of Sat In Your Lap‘s The Harrison Ford Blogathon which is taking place this weekend.

Thanks for letting me take part Michael!

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“No – you’re not hearing me. This is what you need to understand, okay? When I come into one of these fleabag rooms, I switch off.” – Claire Sheperd

Number of Times Seen – Twice (1 May 2009 and 26 Feb 2020)

Brief Synopsis – Numerous story lines connected to Immigration crisscross each other as it focuses on the official, enforcement officers and the illegal aliens themselves who all try make sense of everything going on around them.

My Take on it – I actually expected this film to be my least favorite of the three films for this blogathon and in the end, it was my favorite.

They do a wonderful job creating an anthology of stories related to immigration and its problems.

They are able to point out many flaws in the system while also showing advantages of the system but unfortunately it’s easy to see that they only just scratch the surface of this very complex situation.

This movie actually needs to be much longer because it’s too easy to see how much difficulty they have juggling all of these various story lines.

None of them feel comprehensive enough and something feels lacking in all of them because parts of the stories feel too rushed.

They do a great job developing these characters but that still isn’t enough because they don’t have the time to dive deeper into these stories and give us more of a reason to care about these characters on a greater level.

The choice to have key characters from various rungs of the ladder of the social spectrum and nationalities also works well in showing how the system can be both partial and impartial at the exact same time due to the various decision making processes that are sometimes too subjective.

The cast of this film is superb, but since none of them are developed enough, they all feel a bit too underused.

Even Ford feels as if he doesn’t have enough to do and let’s not forget that he has top billing.

The fact that his character (and many others) have so much potential in a story like this is disappointing since it is never fully realized.

Bottom Line – Great anthology of stories that really try and show the various problems within the immigration system in the US but unfortunately only manages to scratch the surface.  The film needs to be even longer and more comprehensive because it tries too hard to juggle these numerous story lines and none of them end up feeling complete enough. The characters are developed well, but still not deep enough in order for us to really care about everything that is going on.  Really love the way of how they deal with characters from different rungs of the social scale and nationalities because it shows the diversity of it all and how sometimes that status is part of the decision making process even when it probably shouldn’t be. The cast is superb but since none of them are developed enough, even someone like Ford feels a bit underused even if his character has great potential in a story like this one. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – When the immigration officers are interrogating Claire Shepard (Alice Eve), there is a brief mention of IMDb. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (7/10)

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