Alone with Crossing Over...

Again, i found myself alone in the house on a Sunday afternoon. I felt too lazy to go somewhere else so i decided to scrounge some DVDs from Wesa's stock.

I found this movie, Crossing Over, starring Harrison Ford as an immigration agent running after Mexican illegal immigrants.

The film deals with the border, document fraud, the asylum and green card process, work-site enforcement, naturalization, the office of counter terrorism and the clash of cultures.
from: Wikipedia

The movie highlights the lives of different nationalities struggling to get the much-coveted US green card.

There's the Mexican woman named Meriya (Alice Braga), who entered the US illegally with his young son.

Two Australian sweethearts with diverse interest of wanting to stay in the US. The guy (Jim Sturgess) was attempting to pass himself off as young rabbi. His Jewish friends taught him Hebrew prayers that he may use during the interview. He also involved his Mom in Australia to get "some papers" showing he got a Bar Mitzvah and went to Hebrew synagogue.

The girl (Alice Eve) was an aspiring actress and tried a shortcut by getting in bed with an immigration application adjudicator (Ray Liotta), whose wife (Ashley Judd) happens to be an immigration lawyer (pro-bono).

A Bangladeshi girl born in the US but her family is yet to get green cards who got enamored with Islamic extremism and caught the attention of Homeland security after she defended the 9/11 attackers in a class presentation.

A Korean boy and his family on the verged of getting naturalized but got involved with robbery turned bloody after his cohorts killed the Korean owner,

An Iranian-born immigration agent (Cliff Curtis, Ford's partner) belonging to an ultra- conservative family. His rebellious and liberal sister (Melody Khazae) was a considered a dishonor to their family and was killed by another brother (Merik Tadros) in a "family honor" killing. In the movie version, this "honor killing" was omitted. But in the DVD i saw, it was restored.

The climax of the movie was when the Iranian girl was killed by the younger brother , but it was Curtis that Ford suspected as the one who did it.

Distraught, Curtis went to a Korean store, and while inside, a group of hooded Korean youths stormed the store for a robbery. Along the way, the owner was shot and killed. Curtis engaged the youth in a gunbattle and killed all of them, except one young Korean (Justin Chon) who was about to be naturalized the next day. Curtis spared him his life and told him to go.

Ford receive a call from an immigration patrol who found the body of Meriya abandoned in the border. He went to Mexico to personally break the news of Meriya's death.

The Bangladeshi girl (Jaysha Patel) was deemed a future threat and was deported by Homeland security.

The Australian girl was arrested by immigration agents for having gotten his green card a bit too fast.

The Australian guy got a help from an old rabbi during the immigration interview, and eventually got his green card -- and a Jewish girlfriend.

Here's a review from John Hartl of Seattletimes.com:

The writer-director, Wayne Kramer, earned some fans for his 2003 sleeper, "The Cooler," which earned an Oscar nomination for Alec Baldwin. He's certainly good with actors, but he tends to push the big tear-jerker moments.

Kramer is also fond of swooping aerial shots that emphasize the boxy buildings and detention centers that litter the California landscape and trap his characters. He seems to be saying that they can't win in this environment, whether they're as world-weary as Brogan or as cynical as the actress who all but volunteers to prostitute herself.

But (spoiler alert) the movie does hold out some hope for people who luck out and/or won't let the system drag them down. As a result, the doom-laden visual scheme begins to seem inappropriate and a tad pretentious.

Next: DVD - The Red Cliff