Crossover
The inner-city basketball drama ``Crossover" is not a well-made movie, to put it mildly. Shot on grimy digital video, with a formulaic script and woebegone dialogue, it represents the directing debut of screenwriter Preston A. Whitmore II (``Fled"), but it's safe to say that the movie hasn't been directed so much as edited.
The only scenes that spring to life are the basketball sequences, which have been cut to a mixmastered, bombastic fare-thee-well by Stuart Acher and Anthony Adler . Whenever ``Crossover" has to deal with dialogue, you can almost hear the sneakers screech to a halt.
Yet ``Crossover" is honest enough in its inept way, to its characters and to a message that's naive but positive. Anthony Mackie (``She Hate Me," ``Million Dollar Baby ") plays a young Detroit b-ball hustler named Tech who's trying to get his GED after a stint in juvenile prison; he nurses an inferiority complex concerning his best friend Cruise (Wesley Jonathan ), who has better court moves but plans on being a doctor and has the UCLA scholarship to show for it.
Both men play in illegal ``streetball" games organized by big-time gambler Vaughn (Wayne Brady), but while Tech has dreams of pro glory, Cruise won't take the winnings since they'll ruin his eligibility. He knows the only way out is to play it straight.
``Crossover" follows the two friends as they deal with Vaughn's temptations, journey to L A to test out their futures, and get involved with new girlfriends, Eboni (Alecia Fears ) and Vanessa (Eva Pigford ), only one of whom is true blue.
That's the plot, and while you know where the climactic streetball game is going, Whitmore does throw a few unexpected shots. Tech, for one, is poised to look like a flawed antihero, but there's more to him than that, and the gifted Mackie works hard to dig out the role's few subtleties. It's also refreshing to see a movie about young black men that puts a premium on striving and doesn't bother with gangbanging and guns. There's the pulse of authentic urban life flickering here under the endless contrivances.
But, lord, does the script need work. Whitmore's dialogue bends over backward to sound street, but lines like ``Most cats don't get slick like that unless you got a brizzle on the vine" are both incomprehensible and forced. You might also have trouble accepting comedian/talk - show host Brady as the glowering Mr. Big, since he conveys all the menace of Pat Boone playing Scarface.
Earnest and predictable, ``Crossover" deserves more than the horselaughs that will probably greet it in theaters -- but not a lot more. The movie is harmless, which is both its strength and its weakness.
Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com.
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