Dir.
Wayne Kramer, US, 2009, 113 mins
Cast: Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Summer Bishil
Review by
Carol Allen
This is a good subject - the many faces of American immigration and the stories of immigrants of different nationalities seeking legal status in Los Angeles. The multi plot strands are though not as well interlinked as in some other movies that have used this technique, such as Short Cuts and Crash and you have to work very hard for the first twenty minutes or so trying and sort out who's who.
The film attempts to make Ford's character of Max Brogan, an immigration officer with a heart, our guide through at least part of this melting pot of wannabe Americans. His search for the young Mexican woman, whom his team have cruelly and abruptly deported, forcing her to abandon her child, gives the film a bit of narrative cohesion, while he also links into some of the other stories. It's always useful to have well known faces in this sort of movie, when you're trying to get a grip on a multitude of characters, but interestingly the most gripping story line has no familiar actors in it at all.
Taslima (Bishil) is a 15 year old Muslim girl, faced with deportation and the break up of her family for the "crime" of putting forward in a school project the eminently sensible idea of trying to understand 9/11 from the bombers' point of view and for looking at Islamic websites in the course of her research. Her story is emotionally very gripping and would justify having a whole film devoted to it. Another of the more interesting plot strands features an honour killing in the Iranian family of Brogan's immigration officer colleague Hamid (Cliff Curtis). That in turn links to the story of a disaffected Korean boy (Justin Chon), whose family are seeking citizenship but who's got in with a bad crowd.
Ashley Judd as the human rights lawyer, who tries to help Taslima, is another link between some of the stories. She gives a likeable performance but there's not a lot of chance for her to develop the character. She's more a symbol of the liberal face of America. Liotta as her philandering husband and English Alice Eve, sporting an Australian accent as a would be Nicole Kidman clone, show us the sleazier side of the immigration game - Liotta works in immigration and offers her a legal work status in exchange for sex. Jim Sturgess as musician Gavin is a lapsed Jew trying to play the Jewish religion card and, apart from a slim link with Eve's character, is a bit out on his own. There's an amusing scene with him and a rabbi fooling an immigration officer with regard to Gavin's knowledge of Jewish lore, though non American audiences might be a bit puzzled as to why proving one is an orthodox Jew makes it easier to get a green card.
Towards the end the film degenerates into a positive orgy of propaganda, jingoism, self congratulation and flag waving about the glories of being an American citizen, which is likely to leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth, after we've seen so much of the heavy handedness and indeed brutality of the immigration authorities, particularly the woman officer, who's dealing with Taslima. And the big speech about American democracy that Hamid delivers to the Korean boy, when he catches him in a violent raid on a convenience store, verges on the ludicrous. But one suspects the studio gave the director little choice on that one. Politically the film probably had to come up with an ultimate message to the effect that America's a great country, even though its citizens have admit it's not totally perfect.
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