Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Everything that's wrong with this movie is right there in the title. It should have been called either "Across the Line" or "The Exodus of Charlie Wright". No film should ever have a colon in its title unless it's a sequel and even that is pushing it. Yeah, I know it seems like a nit picky thing, but just read it again. If you're the sort of person who would be intrigued by something called "The Exodus of Charlie Wright", do you really need the stuff before the colon to sell you? If you're the sort of person who responds to something punchier like "Across the Line", are you going to impressed by the pretentious stuff after that? This title reads like someone crossed a Chuck Norris/Steven Seagal action flick with an art house rumination on personal discovery. It indicates that either the people who made this motion picture didn't think hard enough about what kind of story they were telling or that there was a struggle over it which was never resolved.Charlie Wright (Aidan Quinn) is a financial con man who steals billions of dollars through a Ponzi scheme. When FBI agent Hobbs (Mario Van Peebles) moves in to arrest him, Charlie disappears like Houdini from a milk can and resurfaces in Tijuana. He's searching for a woman and her child, but plenty of people are looking for Charlie besides the FBI. There's Mexican crime boss Jorge Garza (Andy Garcia), who needs Charlie's ill gotten gains to pay off a debt to the Mexico City cartel, and Jorge's younger brother Gabriel (Danny Pino), who's determined to save his family until he simply gives up. There's also Damon (Luke Goss), a hit-man from the Russian mob who teams with a trio of mercenaries to get to Charlie before the Garza's do because Charlie scammed a hundred million dollars off a pair of Russian mobsters. As Charlie turns to an insecure, needy, middle aged love muffin (Claudia Gerri) for information, Agent Hobbs' gay subordinate (Jordan Belfi) walks out of a Tijuana gay bar and sees the fugitive fraudster on the street, bringing Hobbs down to Mexico to complete the starting line up in the Charlie Wright Derby.This movie is so typical of early 21st century cinema in so many ways. Not just because a decent amount of money got flushed down the rathole to produce yet another direct-to-DVD release that will soon vanish beneath the waves of new releases every week. It's that Across the Line: The Exodus of Charlie Wright shines on the surface but it rotten underneath. This thing looks good. It's shot well and is nicely paced. The dialog is above average and the cast is more than capable. The concept of the story is also solid. Underneath it all, though, is a plot that is a huge minefield of one poorly thought out and illogical storytelling mistake after another.Let's start with the basics. Why should anyone care what happens to Charlie Wright? He's a thief and the awful nature of his theft is repeatedly emphasized, although the only specific victims every presented are the Russian mobsters. If you're trying to tell the story of a bad man's redemption, you have to give people some reason to want to see that bad man redeemed. But you can't diminish his "badness" by presenting his only visible victims as even worse people because it not only undermines the whole redemption them, it cripples any interest in whether the FBI catches him or not. It's the same thing with Jorge Garza. He's presented as a crime lord who's in trouble entirely because of his own actions, so why should I care what happens to him? Why should I care if Damon and his crew grab Charlie or wind up dead? There are either no answers to these questions or the answers are feebly self-negating.And then there are two essential points in the story that are so unsupported and unsupportable that it's like the Almighty Plot Hammer has been replaced with the Almighty Plot Jackhammer. At the start, Agent Hobbs' boss (Corbin Bernsen) is enraged at Charlie's escape and is 100%, absolutely, totally and utterly committed to tracking Charlie down and bringing him to justice. T hen when Hobbs brings him the tip about Charlie being in Tijuana, his boss not only completely disregards it but actually calls off the whole search for Charlie. And at the end, when there's a literal Mexican standoff between the FBI, the Garza crew and Damon's team over Charlie, the cold blooded mercenaries and the Mexican gang simply quit and walk away. Now, maybe you can explain the mercenaries walking away because the risk is not worth what they've been paid, although writer/director R. Ellis Frazier clearly thinks Damon making that decision is a big deal even though Frazier's done nothing in this film to justify such importance. But Gabriel Garza is facing the murder of his older brother and the destruction of his family…and he merely says "Screw it" and gives up? What?I've noticed that each new generation of filmmakers is better and smarter at how movies look and sound and are edited and all of those technical questions. Simultaneously, they're getting worse and dumber about the most basic elements of storytelling. The result is movies like Across the Line: The Exodus of Charlie Wright that are great on first glance but fall to pieces if you think about them for 5 seconds. This is not worth your time.

This movie is almost a bad "made for TV" video. It tries hard to be artsy but has nothing real in that department except some nice guitar music and scenery. Aidan Quinn is one of those actors that seems to have the chops but just comes off as flat all the time. There just isn't much about him to hold your interest in any film. Why is Andy Garcia playing his really cliché Cuban guy who is always wearing white and smoking a cigar- tinted glasses too? (the usual problem with movies - giving costume people license to go overboard)? He is supposed to be Mexican. Gina Gershon was also silly playing his Mexican wife. The only acting in this movie that doesn't come off as hokey is Mario Van Peebles and Claudia Ferri (who played the prostitute and did the best job here). By the way, why was the wrinkle cream so important??? This is just a list of 'B' actors.There were also some completely implausible things happening in this movie. How did the Russian mafia guys always seem to know where Charlie (and Garza) was? Why would all the bad guys just walk away at the end because one FBI agent had Charlie in custody (100's of millions of dollars were at stake)? *** Also to the the above reviewer: Garza was clearly not out for revenge. This makes no sense - he hadn't even had any dealings with Charlie. He just needed money to pay back the people from Mexico City - they made that pretty clear over and over in the movie.**** and a note to all you other reviewers for all IMDb movies: Where did all of you get the idea that a review has to contain a synopsis??? We don't need to read your long rambling re-telling of the story (with errors). It reminds me of people all learning that when you read, you have to talk in a special "reading" tone of voice. It just reeks of bad early teachers.

The Exodus of Charlie Wright works on many different levels. The story, by R. Ellis Frazier is timely considering the recent Bernie Madoff scandal and Frazier gives us a behind the scenes look at a man who scammed 11 Billion dollars from investors and got away with it. With the FBI on his trail, led by Agent Hobbs (Mario Van Peebles) who is determined to save face with his superior officer, a crass and effective Corbin Bernsen. Hobbs sets off to find Wright, (Aidan Quinn) but soon finds others on the money trail, including vigilantes hired by one of Wright's victims ( led by Luke Goss) and a Mexican businessman (Andy Garcia) and his brother Danny Pino) who need to find Wright's stashed away money to save themselves from some kind of big debt they have in Mexico City.With all of the action brewing Tijuana is the perfect backdrop for finding Charlie Wright. Charlie, however is more concerned with finding his long lost daughter and making up for the time he's lost and the lives he's destroyed.One of the strong points in the film is the consistent depth of acting. All the performances are solid. Van Peebles brings a mature and reflective depth to his role. Garcia adds vulnerability to his strong exterior and Quinn has a depth of soul in his life's reflection that makes watching him so enjoyable.Strong performances are also turned in by the scene stealing Claudia Ferri as an prostitute who helps Charlie find his daughter and his way. And also Luke Goss as the intense hit-man bent on killing Wright. The performances can be attributed to strong direction by Frazier and solid editing. Scenes move quickly and the pace is fluid while maintaining the depth of the performances without lagging on any moment too long. The camera moves fluidly and cuts are pinpoint getting to the point and driving home the emotion and action. The action scenes work without any big budget effects, so kudos to the sound, music and editing departments for making it work.Also solid camera work and lots of hand-held or steadicam shots put you in the action and keep you there. The cinematography really helps set the tone. There are many interesting angles and movements which really help define the character of the film.Exodus is woven together with a beautiful score. A virtuoso blend of guitar mixed with some orchestral arrangements and strong percussion make listening to the film a pleasure. Some great original songs are also scattered throughout the soundtrack. I especially liked the end title theme.Another strong point is the sound mix. Really great clarity on blu-ray. My surround speakers picked up the subtle background sounds and a lot of the accented effects punctuated the sound mix to give it a surreal yet realistic feel. The mix was harmonized and balanced.This is great low budget filmmaking. Judging by the credits list, Frazier did a lot with a very little. This seems to be about a quarter of the staff of a studio film and the results are on par with any major indie, so hats off to all the people who worked on this. I'm going to watch La Linea this week because I think this is an up and coming writer/director to look out for.

I was pleasantly Surprised with this movie I felt that it was well acted and well produced. Would have been better if it was available in Blu-Ray. I thought that the sound track was good and really rocked the sub woofer. I thought that the scene where Charlie was about to get captured seemed a bit hard to believe though. Not sure why the Mexican and Russian gangs would stop for the FBI when they have no jurisdiction in Mexico. I also had a hard time with understanding how Charlie escaped from the bull ring. I also thought that they could have developed Charlie's daughter a little more as well. I thought that the roll of the FBI detective was well played