Crossing the Bridge

Mike Binder's beautifully observed coming-of-age film about three Detroit buddies (Charles, Gedrick, and Stephen Baldwin) attempting a drug run across the Ambassador Bridge from Canada was unfairly neglected in theaters last summer. Its theme, simply, is ''hanging out,'' and the movie is alive with character and telling detail, spiked with sadness. One of the guys wants to be a writer, and it's his grabbing the door handle to the waiting world that makes Crossing the Bridge both touching and memorable. A-