Crossing Over (2009) poster
2009 · crime · drama

Crossing Over

Directed by Wayne Kramer1h 53m2009
ElsewhereIMDb6.725kRT15%Metacritic38
  • heavy
Movie DNA

Heavy, steady, measured crime / drama, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create -- in 21st century L.A.

Our read · Crossing Over (2009) reads as a heavy, steady, grounded crime · drama entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of Crossing Over

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a grim mosaic about immigration, power, and moral compromise.

ends bittersweetit leaves you shakena rollercoastergrips by minute 8attention 4/5earns its lengthsubtitles: partial
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violenceexplicit sexsuicide themechild peril

Skip it tonightHeavy ensemble misery and exploitation themes will sour your evening.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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