No, I am not crossing over to the dark side, wherever that might be. Last night was movie night, and as the title of this post foreshadows, the film I watched was called Crossing Over.
As regular readers know it’s kinda hit and miss with me and movies as I am pretty much out of touch with popular American culture. Netflix has helped a little (although I tend to order Korean movies from there, go figure), but I still occasionally pick up “street movies” which is always a bit of crap shoot in all respects (quality of the DVD and quality of the content).
Which is a long way to say I had never heard of Crossing Over. I picked it up because I recognized members of the cast–Harrison Ford, Ashley Judd, and Ray Liotta. No clue what the movie was going to be about story-wise, but I liked my odds since it came with a talented cast.
Alright, so the actors acted at least up to expected standards. And the story revolves around an interesting and topical issue–immigration. But as the opening credits rolled and I saw the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detention facility in L.A., well, I pretty much guessed what I was in for–a heapin’ helpin’ of pungent Hollywood propoganda. And that’s what I got.
Let’s see how many illegal aliens undocumented workers were being oppressed by those meanies at DHS. Young Mexican mother and countless other helpless immigrants doing factory work Americans won’t do? Of course. We also had the sad tales of a young Australian actress, a Jewish atheist from the UK, an orphaned girl from Nigeria, and a family from Bangladesh all at the mercy of those evil immigration agents. And oh, just to round out the stew (heh, in the melting pot!) we had storylines involving legal Iranian and Korean immigrants.
Are you with me so far? Good that was the easy part!
So, of course the villians in the story are those thankless rubes charged with enforcing U.S. immigration law. Now, Harrison Ford’s character is somewhat sypathetic to the plight of the illegals and is roundly castigated for his kindness by his peers. The opening scene sets the tone, as Ford inquires about the health of one of the capturees as is given a ration of sh*t about it. Then we move on to a clothing factory raid where Ford finds a young woman hiding. He appears ready to pretend he doesn’t see her until another ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agent happens along and asks what he’s waiting for “a marriage proposal”? So, of course Ford hauls her out to the waiting bus. But the women has a child staying with friends and begs Ford to take her pay there so the boy won’t be put out on the street. Ford responds that he can’t help her, and she continues pleading and just before being placed on the bus she shoves a piece of paper into his hands. His cronies ridicule him and he throws the paper on the ground telling them to lay off. Of course, that night he goes back to the factory and searches the parking lot with a flashlight until he finds the paper and rescues the child. Nice guy in the wrong job apparently.
Next up is Ray Liotta playing an immigration official responsible for approving green card applications. He’s involved in a traffic accident with the illegal Australian actress. And of course he tells her he can get her a green card in exchange for two months of sex. She agrees, but feels lousy about it. Go figure.
It gets worse. We are then introduced to a teenage girl from Bangladesh, giving a presentation to her school classmates all decked out in the Keffiyeh headwear. She is talking about the courageous 9/11 terrorists and how their motives were misunderstood. She said that these poor oppressed people were only trying to be heard, and since all anyone talks about since the attacks are Islamic extremists, they were successful. Oh she goes on and on with graphic descriptions of being “heard” above “roaring jet engines” slamming into steel buildings. Disgusting. Her classmates are going wild calling her all sorts of names (like sand monkey) and finally the teacher makes her sit down. Now, I have to admit I was just about as pissed as her classmates yelling at the TV to get her ass out of the country. But what really got my goat was that these Hollywood pukes actually tried to make this girl a sympathetic character. The failed miserably I believe in attempting to justify the senseless murder of 3000 innocents. But oh did they try!
Which brings us to the next depiction of the big baddies from DHS. See, the school principle gave a copy of the girl’s report to the folks at Homeland Security. And that night there was the proverbial knocking on the door by government thugs. Turns out the girl’s family was in the country illegally, except for two siblings who were born in the USA (no relation to Bruce Springsteen I’m sure). So, the girl is questioned harshly about her remarks and she responds with the old “I thought there was free speech in this country” routine. People tend to foget about the consequences of expressing unpopular viewpoints. Ask the Dixie Bitches Chicks. Say what you want, but take responsibility for your words, don’t whine about it. The DHS agent in charge is similarly unimpressed with this line of argument. Other agents search the room and find her diary expressing suicidal ideations and her computer showed she was a frequent visitor to jihadi websites. Somehow these misguided government agents put 2+2 together and came up with the ridiculous conclusion that the girl was a potential threat to America. Duh! The girl pleads that she only said she understood why the terrorists wanted to be “heard”, not that she agreed with their methods. The cold hearted DHS folks weren’t buying it and hauled her off to the detention facility gulag in San Pedro. Bastards.
So then we meet Ashley Judd’s character, an immigration lawyer who won’t countenance this paranoid nonsense from DHS, calling it “ridiculous” that the government would consider this girl a threat based on the most “circumstantial evidence”. Only problem was since the girl was an illegal she had no due process rights and Judd was told she would be deported. Just to prove the government wasn’t totally heartless, Judd was told that if the girl went quietly with one of her parents the other could remain behind with the two natural born Americans, provided they didn’t make any trouble. Judd was outraged but powerless to do more than rage against the machine. So we are then treated to a tearful scene in the detention facility when the girl learns she must depart the country she so recently gleefully justified being attacked by sick, cowardly bastards. Funny how that worked out.
Sorry for the spoilers, but damn, I’m still pretty pissed at what this movie was trying to “sell” to the American people.
The Korean immigrants had a son who got involved with some local Korean gang bangers, and the Iranians murdered a daugher for disrepecting the family by becoming to Western in her world view (she was sleeping with a Mexican-American boyfriend, God Allah forbid. Funny thing about that was when I looked this film up on Wikipedia I discovered this bit: “The film originally featured a scene in which an Iranian character is murdered by her brother in an honor killing, but the National Iranian American Council opposed the plotline as being unrealistic and offensive, and the killing was rewritten as a crime of passion to remove all reference to “family honor”. Heh, that didn’t work out to well either. I knew right away it was in fact an “honor” killing.
Ok, other than that I really liked this movie. Seriously. I thought it was well made, pretty well written, and entertaining. And the best thing is I think it had the opposite impact from the one intended. I believe most people would agree after seeing this movie that people who come to the USA illegally had best mind their P’s and Q’s. Americans are not sympathetic to scofflaws, especially those who think crashing airliners into buildings is a cool way to be “heard”.
Watch it yourself and see what you think. I didn’t spoil *all* the good parts. Promise.
