Crossover (2006)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

the audience applauded

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Crossover is a film that could've brought a great deal of life and energy to the world of competitive streetball, but unfortunately settles for the lowest common denominator in entertainment. Despite having a moderate amount of energy during its streetball sequences, this is a predictably vanilla sports film, giving no new life to the genre, providing no real development to its many characters, and settling for theatrical dialog over the better, more entrancing realistic kind.We focus on Noah Cruise (Wesley Jonathan), a basketball player, who receives an athletic scholarship to UCLA following the death of his mother. Cruise, however, would prefer using his scholarship to work towards his medical aspirations, but puts up with the deafening screams of demands and orders from people like Vaughn (Wayne Brady), a sports agent desperate to recruit. Cruise takes pride knowing he has close friends like Tech (Anthony Mackie) and Up (Lil' JJ), two that have his back at all times, through thick and thin, even as both him and Tech struggle to please their women, Vanessa (Eva Pigford) and Eboni (Alecia Fears) respectively and work to make a revolutionary basketball trip to Los Angeles count.As stated, the streetball scenes in the film bear a moderate amount of slickness, part of which is thanks to the editing by Stuart Acher and Anthony Adler, who keep things mostly clean and coherent, and partly because of the crystal-clear cinematography of Christian Sebaldt, who knows how to choreograph and shoot a hectic setting. With that, Crossover's praise comes to a screeching halt. The remainder of the film exists in that sliver of cinema which isn't predicated off of realism nor plausibility, but conveniently-occurring, theatrical circumstances that make for nothing more than a melodramatic bore.To begin with, for a film about the competitive world of streetball, given writer/director Preston A. Whitmore II's emphasis on eye-rolling drama and overwrought circumstances makes this feel like a daytime soap-opera instead of a compelling drama centered around characters and the sport they play. The drama we get is typical relationship fodder that isn't so much substantive or intriguing for the story's progression, nor is it very compelling to watch in the face of the greater issues at hand. Some of the best scenes come when Cruise and Tech are interacting with one another, as Jonathan and Mackie have made for strong screen presences elsewhere, but here, everything seems to grind and falter when the camera starts rolling after turning away from the prime concept of the film.This kind of drama wouldn't be so contemptible if it wasn't so overwrought, however. Crossover feels like a very weak Tyler Perry film, in which so many different issues and dramatic elements are piled on characters in such a boring, ho-hum nature that the film loses its humanity. This becomes apparent especially when we see how the dialog caters to the more fabled, "exciting" realms of movie dialog than how people in real life actually communicate. After we're burdened with all this for over an hour, the streetball scenes are a too-little-too-late asset to an already lackluster film, established of nothing more than overwrought melodrama and an occasionally compelling instance in a competitive streetball game. Crossover is a poor endeavor for an already underserved demographic that deserves better than the mistreatment and shallow, human focus they've been provided with here.Starring: Wesley Jonathan, Anthony Mackie, Lil' JJ, Wayne Brady, Eva Pigford, Alecia Fears, and Philip Champion. Directed by: Preston A. Whitmore II.

I watched this movie one boring night with a bunch of friends who swore to god it was the worst movie ever made, so of course we have to watch it.Honestly, they were absolutely right. It was one of the more fun nights of my life too. Couldn't stop A: laughing at how bad it was, and B: staring in disbelief something this bad could be made.There was really no comprehensible plot, no characters to like, no character development, nobody in the movie talks without the camera being pointed at them (conversations are quite funny because it just flips between each person over and over), no comedy, not really any redeeming factor outside of doing everything so poorly its enjoyable. Wayne Brady being in it is just icing on the cake, especially after the famous Chappelle skit. Pretty much the perfectly bad movie.I highly recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys hilariously bad movies and cant wait to watch it again with another group of friends on another boring night.

Yeah this movie made the IMDb bottom list for a good reason. Its stinks. We've seen this type of movie before with Above The Rim and Sunset Park but at least those movies were appealing. This movie is pretty much a brick.Premise: Cruise(Wesley Johnathan) and Tech(Anthony Mackie) are friends who have aspirations besides playing street ball. Cruise wants to go to college and Tech wants to pass his GED and go to college as well. Along the way of hustling people in street ball, they meet up with two women(played by Alicia Fears and Eva Pigford) as well as an unscrupulous promoter/agent Vaughn(played by Wayne Brady) who does anything in his power to sign Cruise and Tech.Opinion: The storyline is predictable and the acting is sub par. Its not like Wesley Johnathan and Anthony Mackie cant act. On the contrary they have potential but the juvenile script kills them. Cruise is a goof ball and Tech is childish and annoying. Eva Pigford is terrible but Alicia Fears shows some promise. Wayne Brady is funnier trying to be serious in this movie than his corny stand-up routines. Plus what would movies like this be without clichés and stereotypes. Tech is a reprehensible punk black man who not only puts his hands on the girl who genuinely likes him but he even comes close to punching her and Eva Pigford's character after he finds out that she sold Cruise out to a magazine. What black movie is complete without a black man who misdirects his anger beats up on women and drinks his pain away instead of taking his anger out on the people who caused his grief? Eva Pigford's character is a typical hood harlot who uses Cruise with the pregnant routine and dumps him when she realizes that he is not going to California and he is not going to play pro basketball. Gotta love the sickening portrayal of black women as gold diggers in these films by Follywood. And the scene where the hood rat was mouthing off about her no good boyfriend was to die for. You get the drift. This movie plays like a poorly written soap opera with stereotypes and clichés thrown into the mix. Then it tries to tug at your heartstrings with Cruise ending up in the hospital after an accident and tries to justify Tech coming within a hairsbreadth of punching out Eva Pigford's character after that she might have leaked the news of Cruise playing a street B-ball game with a rival basketball crew called "Platinum" for money. This film wallows in its predictability, stereotypes and clichés like a pig does mud. Yeah the edited basketball scenes are nice to look at but when that is all a movie has going for it than its a waste of precious time. Plus any movie that has Wayne Brady playing the villain is not steeped in reality. This movie is a certified brick. He aims. he shoots, air ball!

Noah is a student trying to get into medical school on a basketball scholarship. However, neighborhood rivalry makes things more difficult than he originally thought and a somewhat shady sports agent taunts him with dreams of big money.For the record, I watched this movie because it is number 1 on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. This film seems to take more flak than anything Uwe Boll has done - his movies, also bashed, are higher rated but still in the Bottom 100 on IMDb. However, I tried to watch as if I had no knowledge of what others thought it just to form my own opinion free from intervention.The conclusion of my little experiment is the film is really not that bad. Is it stellar? No. But worst movie ever. No. Obviously Preston A. Whitmore II isn't Spike Lee or Scorsese and the film seems over edited, especially in the beginning with constant whooshes and sped up pans. Yes the script isn't a drama masterwork - it includes a pointless 'where are they now' narration/titles at the end, but that is probably more indicative of the film's budget rather than creative choice. Then the actors aren't world class, but who really cares? The story is consistent, remarkably free of profanity or other exploitation and stereotypical portrayal of inner-city life. It has, as another user wrote, "a positive overtone" while staying well clear of being preachy.As far as being worse than Uwe Boll is another thing. Boll makes mediocre made movies with no plot. This film is better than mediocre and has a decent well-intentioned plot to it, which essentially should lift it above anything like 'House of the Dead' or 'Alone in the Dark.' But maybe people are so hungry for sensation these days that they like awful sensation over decent, if not stellar, drama. If that sounds like a drug addiction to you, well you're right, because it is. --- 6/10Rated PG-13: minimal profanity and some sexual content