Much more here than first meets the eye

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	• Criss-Cross [VHS] Goldie Hawn, Arliss Howard MGM (Video & DVD), 1996 average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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Good coming of age movie

This is a good coming of age movie. David Arnott did a great job portraying a kid trapped in a difficult living situation with a mom who's stripping for money and a dad who's divorced from his mom and living in a monestary after suffering post traumatic stress from the war in Nam. The movie did run slow and the ending was kind of abrupt. Overall, I'm glad I purchased the movie and I'll watch it again.

Much more here than first meets the eye

This is a well-written story about ordinary, decent people, and a very well-acted "little" film that simply doesn't beat you over the head with how good it is. Watch it more than once. The characters, and the tough, real life financial and personal dilemmas and choices they struggle with, will hold your interest even after the movie is finished. To dub this a mere "coming of age" tale is to miss the point. As our country is once again peopled with those whose lives have been forever changed by the hard consequences of war and/or economic crisis, this movie is both timely and worth appreciating. I highly recommend this film.

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Blonde...

A 'coming of age' movie of sorts, this particular feature is a tad slow for my general taste. However, David Arnott is so incredibly gorgeuos, I find myself watching this one again and again. A good and believable young actor he is as well. I've always enjoyed Goldie Hawn, which makes this one well worth owning in my book.

Add A Star If You Like Goldie Hawn

If you do, you'll be in hog heaven as Hawn portrays a piece of beach trash who tries a little late to mend her ways. The relationship between her character and that of her son, who looks to be around 11 or 12 in the film, is one of the enduring accounts in the movies of a mother trying to stay too young and a boy overcome by urges he didn't know he had. The young actor who plays the boy, David Arnott, does a fine job maneuvering between trying to be just a kid and having to deal with unexpected adult complexities. He breaks your heart as he attempts valiantly to be the father to the eternally youthful and hedonistic character Goldie Hawn plays, she should be the mother but she doesn't know how to. And Arliss Howard is in the movie too, always underrated, with killer looks and a mean streak that gives him a bit of Warren Oates-like excitement. This movie tries to stretch Goldie Hawn's acting chops a bit but I think people will always prefer her in kind of ditsy comedy roles. This one hit too close to home for her many fans to enjoy it, and there aren't really enough boy-watchers out there to have made this a huge hit on account of the then-unknown David Arnott.

It's the kind of American movie that was being made in the age of the New American Cinema of the 1970s, a character-driven study of laziness, cruelty and unexpected courage, more akin perhaps to SUGARLAND EXPRESS or SHAMPOO than to any of Goldie's other films. She and Arnott should team up for another picture today, it could be a hit, if enough marketing muscle is leveraged to get those asses into the seats as they say.

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reviews: page 1, 2

Comic actress Goldie Hawn takes a serious turn in the affecting coming-of-age story Criss Cross. Hawn (Shampoo, The First Wives Club) plays Tracy Cross, a single mother in Key West, Florida, who turns to stripping to support her son Chris (newcomer David Arnott). Meanwhile, Chris struggles to find himself, faced with a father (Keith Carradine, Choose Me, Nashville) who abandoned him, his mother's new boyfriend (Arliss Howard, Full Metal Jacket), and the temptation of selling drugs. The plot elements may sound melodramatic, but CrissCross keeps everything real with detailed performances, attention to the mundane (but telling) aspects of daily life, and a view of human nature that goes beyond the good-guy/bad-guy simplicity of most movies. CrissCross captures some of the ambiguity of human life, and that's an impressive feat. Also featuring brief appearances by character actors Steve Buscemi, Paul Calderon, and Anna Levine Thomson. --Bret Fetzer

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