Product Description

The clock strikes midnight, money changes hands, the crowd is on their feet, and the court is alive with fast-paced razzle-dazzle basketball. These players don't play for a school or a pro team. They play for the street and it's underground...way underground. Tech (Anthony Mackie) and Cruise (Wesley Jonathan) are two best friends with mad streetballing skills. They light up the court with electrifying moves and spectacular dunks. But off the court their goals couldn't be more different. Tech dreams of going to the NBA and winning a streetball game against his conceited archrival Jewelz (Phillip "Hot Sauce" Champion). Cruise, with the natural talent to be an NBA star, wants to use his basketball scholarship to UCLA pre-med to become a doctor rather than give in to the lure of former sports agent Vaughn (Wayne Brady - TV's "The Wayne Brady Show"), who wants him to go pro. Crossover is a story of friendship and getting crossed, where true warriors play be their own rules and have the wicked ball-handling skills, hops and street smarts to show off their true talent.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19506 in DVD
• Brand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
• Released on: 2007-02-20
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .15 pounds
• Running time: 95 minutes

Amazon.com
Marketing aside, Crossover is more concerned with off-court melodrama than on-court action. Tech (Anthony Mackie, Half Nelson) and Noah (Wesley Jonathan, Roll Bounce) are best friends and streetball stars. Their base of operations is the Detroit of 8 Mile and Four Brothers. Tech, who has a record, just wants to get his GED and make a decent living, while Noah plans to use his college scholarship to become a doctor. Their lives take a turn when Vaughn (Wayne Brady in a rare dramatic turn), a sports agent-turned-promoter, leans on Noah to defer his dream and turn pro. Vaughn pays his b-ball team to play, but that doesn't mean, of course, that he actually cares about his players. To him, it's business. Along the way, Tech gets involved with Eboni (promising newcomer Alecia Fears) and Noah with her social-climbing friend, Vanessa (America's Next Top Model Eva Pigford, who should probably stick with the catwalk), who used to go with their arch-rival Jewelz (real-life streetball player Phillip "Hot Sauce" Champion). Just as the movie questions whether the men's friendship is built to last, it questions whether their romantic entanglements are the real deal. Writer/director Preston A. Whitmore II shoots Crossover like a rap video. The post-production effects are flashy, but there isn't a lot of substance behind the style. Mackie and Jonathan, however, get the job done. The film may be formulaic, but their natural charisma makes it worth watching. Just be forewarned that there isn't much roundball playing going on here. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Stills from Crossover (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

Morals meet Comedy
Cons: In the beginning of the movie, the plot seemed predictable and some of the dialogue didn't roll off the tongues of the actors very well. Anthony Mackie sounded a little too grown to be saying some of the slang he was saying, or maybe I just wasn't convinced that he was someone who came from jail. I was slightly weary of the two main characters being friends, because the beginning didn't give me a feeling that they connected. That is, until the cash register scene when math came into play. I was honestly wondering for the first 20 minutes whether I'd wasted my money.

Pros: Wesley Jonathan and Lil JJ are some fools! I went to see this movie with a big audience who had a sense of humor, so all of us spent half the movie laughing at those two cracking jokes. I'm still giggling about Wesley Jonathan's "We go together" comment and Lil JJ's comment on "housesitting." For such a serious theme, those two were the perfect ones to bring comedy to the movie. On a superficial note, I think Wesley Jonathan's hair looks GORGEOUS in braids.
This movie touched on a lot of not-so-popular topics like the embarassment of not finishing high school, the struggle of getting a GED, how street codes and friendship can clash, golddiggers, real love vs. temporary lust, sports agency greed, and crooked cops. The guy who played the arrogant famous ball player did so very well. After I got more into the movie, I enjoyed Anthony Mackie's character and Wayne Brady's character as well. The climax scene in L.A. opened my eyes to a lot of things that made this movie not the typical sports movie and the ending was fabulous. I respected what the writers did with this one quite a bit, and the flying money scene was clever. Obviously by the time the movie was over, I realized that my money was well spent on a movie I'm surprised hit the show considering it went against the grain of the typical Hollywood stereotypes.

i didnt buy this for myself
I guess this is ok, a friend of mine ordered it and i havent heard anything bad about it so it must be good

Streetball, Underground Money, Dreams, and Resolutions
CROSSOVER has style. Writer/director Preston A. Whitmore II makes up in visual technique and pacing what he lacks in a somewhat tired script, and simply sitting back and watching the movement for this viewer makes the movie worthwhile.

The story details the mechanisms of the underground betting on streetball in Detroit - basketball teams that that serve as betting pawns for promoters. Caught up in the flashy court skills are two close friends - Tech (Anthony Mackie), who has a crime record and dreams of plying pro-ball for the NBA, and Noah Cruise (the very fine and hunky Wesley Jonathan) whose goal is to use his streetball earnings to enter college and medical school. The friends' big rival team is headed by Jewelz (actual ball player Phillip "Hot Sauce" Champion) and the betting setups between these two rival teams strikes the flame for the action that follows. Of course there is the requisite romantic interest (both for good and bad) brought to play by fine actors Alecia Jai Fears, Shelli Boone and Eva Pigford and in the end the story is more about friendship and trust and commitment than it is about winning.

Whitmore elects to cut and splice his shots of the games like a DJ on a record spin and that aspect of the film is fascinating and creative. He also capitalizes on a fine chemistry that Anthony Mackie and Wesley Johnson generate. The plot is predictable and the story has been done before, but in the end the film satisfies because of the way it plays - and because of the choreography on the court! Grady Harp, February 07