Crossing Over

A sub-par knockoff of Paul Haggis' "Crash," writer/ director Wayne Kramer's L.A.-based dramatic tapestry is a threadbare yawner. Harrison Ford plays Max Brogan, a bleeding-heart Immigration & Customs Enforcement officer with "ICE" spelled out across the back of his intimidating uniform. When Max isn't trying to let cowering immigrant mothers off the hook during daily sweatshop raids, he's investigating the murder of his Iranian partner Hamid's black-sheep little sister. Summer Bishil continues in the exploitation vein of her last film "Towelhead," as Taslima, a Bangladeshi high school student with a pro-terrorist agenda who gets her family into all sorts of trouble with an incendiary verbal essay about 9/11. Ray Liotta is a green-card adjudicator married to Ashley Judd, as an immigration defense attorney, who jumps at an opportunity to sexually exploit sexy Aussie immigrant actress Claire (Alice Eve) when a car accident--her fault--brings them together. The movie doesn't even muster a paint-by-numbers level of competency. Kramer uses so many helicopter shots of L.A. that it makes us wish there were at least a police car chase to distract from the soap opera at hand.
(The Weinstein Company) Rated R. 113 mins. (D+) (One Star)