Crossing Over
Crossing Over is the first really worthwhile Hollywood drama of 2009. In a series of vignettes that eventually all interlock we’re introduced to Max Brogan (Harrison Ford) a jaded but thorough California immigration officer who uncharacteristically helps Mireya Sanchez (Alice Braga) a Mexican alien whose young son is left stranded following her arrest. After returning the lad to his grandparents he spends personal time in a futile attempt to find Mireya. Meantime agent Cole Frankel (a refreshingly impressive Ray Liotta) is eliciting sex for a green card from Claire Shepard (Alice Eve) a hot but illegal Aussie actress, while her pal Gavin Kossef (Jim Sturgess) is trying to scam a green card on religious grounds. Cole’s wife Denise Frankel (Ashley Judd) is an immigration lawyer trying to defend Taslima (Summer Bishil, impressively sympathetic playing someone very hard to like) a 15 year old Muslim whose outrageous high school essay has put her whole family at risk. In the same detention centre as Taslima and being held indefinitely is another of this lawyer’s clients, a very young African girl that Denise wants to adopt. Eventually Claire’s best laid plans begin to unravel when her forgotten plan “A” of buying a fake green card falls apart with the brutal death of the guy paid to forge that paperwork. He turns out to have an unsavoury connection with the stringent Middle Eastern family of Hamid Baraheri (Cliff Curtis), coincidentally Brogan’s heroic but flawed partner. Crossing Over is a modern fable about the American immigration policy in a post 9/11 world and like all fables there’s a moral here - be careful of who you want, you just might get them.