Crosstown (Miriam Kruishoop, 2013):USA

Reviewed by Jian Gedrick at Metro 4 Theater, Santa Barbara CA

Jesus pressuring his son, Beto, to join the army.

The film , “Crosstown”, opens up with a young hispanic boy getting stomped, kicked and wailed on by much older men.They continue for awhile and the viewer wonders what he must have done to deserve such a beating. When it’s finally over they help him up and applaud him as if he’s just graduated school. It is then clear that the young boy has just been initiated into a gang.

Directed by Dutch filmmaker Miriam Kruishoop, Crosstown is about a family of five immigrants from El Salvador trying, like everyone else living in the country, to achieve the American dream. Jesus (Manny Perez)  has put everything he has on the line to live with his wife and three children in Los Angeles. However, being Hispanic and living in a lower class area of Los Angeles, has created great obstacles as well. The current living situation has drawn the oldest son Beto (Mario Ardila Jr.) into a gang. Jesus condemns his son’s gang lifestyle and wants him to get out of it any way he can. While at school, Beto is confronted by two Marine recruiters that become  aware of his family background,  and promise him the benefits and privileges he will have after serving in the army, including green cards for his entire family. While Beto is against the idea, Jesus sees this as a blessing sent from God and an opportunity to gain access to a better life for his whole family. He forces his son to join the service, soon tragedy strikes and the family’s life begins to fall apart.

For the first three quarters of the film Crosstown is told from the different perspectives of the main characters. Overlapping and repeated sequences are interwoven to form the overall message of the movie. Director Kruishoop is at times unsuccessful using this technique where some stories are being seen more through characters other than the intended ones. Nevertheless, we still get a good portrait of each of them. Beto, the oldest of Jesus’ children, tries unsuccessfully to help his father by offering him gang money. He is also very protective of his family and prevents his gang members from recruiting his younger brother Angel. Angel is your average teenager with long hair, wearing beanies and skater shoes. He loves soccer and rides around on his bicycle during the day. He meets a girl in a convenience store Jazmine (Paige Hurd) who becomes his girlfriend. Her father is a police officer whose work around the streets of Los Angeles makes him uneasy seeing his daughter around a hispanic boy in Los Angeles. He prevents Jazmine from seeing Angel and his overprotection makes everything worse and ends up corrupting both of them, most notably Angel. Not long after, the characters who have to witness Angel’s descent into the gang life are his parents Jesus and Gabrielle (Vivica A. Fox). Jesus who came to this country willing to make sacrifices in order to make a better life for his family ultimately suffers the sacrifice of his oldest son’s life at war, where his appreciation towards America is destroyed. Gabrielle is the mother who is proud of El Salvadorian background and keeps to speaking in her native tongue and still tries to take care and maintain the innocence of their young daughter while everything begins to unravel.

Jazmine and Angel

Crosstown is a film about the loss of innocence influenced by the deception from the U.S. government. While America is advertised as a land of opportunity and hope,the truth of the matter is that hope and opportunity goes out the window for a lot of families. In the beginning it seems joining the gang is a top priority for Beto, but as the film progresses it becomes clear joining gangs is a last resort, an attempt to continue to live when everything else, that had made life seem fulfilling, has been taken away by an ethnocentric society.

Beto just like his father doesn’t want to see the rest of his family fall into that lifestyle saying too his little sister before he leaves for the military “Be good and do well in school”.  The inevitable happens as we watch the transformation of his brother Angel from a fun-loving kid who’s speaks rather meekly and does innocent activities such as jumping on a  bed with his girlfriend while listening to loud music. To a shaved, tattooed, baggy-clothed ‘Cholo’, cursing, dealing drugs, and begin doing more ‘adult’ activities with his girlfriend.

While the movie has a powerful message, that of a severe flaw that lies in today’s society, it doesn’t offer anything innovative or moving in it’s filmmaking. There are several cliches and perfect coincidences throughout the movie. Some examples include one scene where Angel is conveniently alone at a park juggling a soccer ball at night when six gang members abruptly confront him without even noticing them coming. Another scene where Jesus fatally injures a police officer with a simple shove. There are scenes where the dialogue is stale as well. Resulting in a film with a poignant message not delivered in a poignant manner.

With an epilogue stating that “over 30 percent of illegal immigrants were promised of receiving papers and green cards if their young relatives joined the U.S. military and were subsequently denied later”, Crossroads shows the true face of what is like to be an illegal immigrant family, especially from latin america, living in an urban area. Interestingly enough, Crossroads was shot with a diverse crew that, according to the director, were all female. Having that in mind also helped me see the film’s humanistic message.  During the Q and A with the director, one of the audience members says she found the statement in the epilogue conservative as it was reported the true figure was up to 70 percent! Either way, Crosstown is a good film, but it’s not great. It doesn’t move as much while your watching it, but it leaves you thinking about the injustice and true intent of the governments motives of recruiting young illegal aliens and then screwing them over.