Trade (2007)

Needless melodrama

Trade is a film everyone should see. Unfortunately, the Internet has made it easier for sleazeballs to market young Mexican girls to perverts.There's really not much to say about the acting in this film. Kevin Kline's performance was lean and economical--his role wasn't overwritten, which helped to keep the focus on the film's sad premise.

The film's plot revolves around a young streetsmart Mexican punk and his younger--13 year old--sister. Russian slave-traders abduct the 13 year old girl and process her and others out of Mexico and into the U.S. Meanwhile, the girl's older brother persuades an American tourist--insurance man--to help him find his little sister. It's here that the movie threatens to lose focus by staging political--and cliche--verbal exchanges between Kline and the Mexican punk. Thankfully, though, these exhanges were brief and interrupted by scenes involving the trafficked women and their sadistic keepers. Like livestock, the women are packed and shipped in trucks, held in dungeons, and shepherded across hot acrid terrain. Prospective buyers molest the stolen women who are dazed and numbed by all the drugs their keepers feed them.

As a film, Trade doesn't break any new ground; however, the film's subject is potent enough that there's no need to do anything to distract from its main focus. September 12, 2008

Another side of illegal human traffickinking

When most people think about illegal immigration, they think of South American people crossing borders in order to assume low level jobs such as: migrant workers picking fruits and vegetables, house cleaning positions, kitchen work in the restaurants. But what many people seem to ignore or simple are not aware of is the fact that women and children are the most vulnerable beings in this process. The get traded as sex slaves all over the world. Without documents, language skills and awareness of how to contact authorities for help, their destinies are bleak. This film tackles some of those topics, but it leaves more questions unanswered. Film is an eye opener, but I must say one does not hear much about this talked about in public. In some respect, this topic is still very much a taboo. September 8, 2008

Painful truth

The most sad about this movie is the fact that this is all happening around us while we are asleep...or awake. August 2, 2008

Uncomfortable but necessary

This is not a fun movie, and given the subject matter, it shouldn't be. Sex slavery has received increasing attention lately, but most people here still associate it with Thailand or Russia. This film drives home the fact that it could be going on not too far from where you live. And as the film demonstrates, it's very difficult to do anything about it.
This isn't great movie-making. It becomes pretty predictable in places. Several times, it's contrived and relies on improbable coincidences to keep the pursuers on the track of the bad guys. And the final confrontation in New Jersey ends disappointingly formulaic and flat. But the acting by largely unknown actors is solid, and having all mostly use their respective native language (with subtitles where necessary) adds a touch of authenticity. Even Kevin Kline, whom I could never stand as a comedian, does a credible job; for most of the film he seems somewhat befuddled and lost, which actually fits perfectly with his character. There are a few flashes of brilliance in the film: The field of reeds is one of the eeriest sequences I've seen in a long time. Do such places exist? Knowing what we do about the state of humankind, why shouldn't they? And at the very end, the film seems to satisfy your appetite for revenge, and then a few seconds later with a very simple device makes you stop and question it. Superbly done. June 26, 2008

Money, it's a hit. Dont give me that do goody good b...

I liked this movie. Not because of the inherent qualities of it as a movie but because of the message it was trying to convey.

Judging from some of the reviews out there some people are trying to make more out of implied politics than it genuinely contained.

The fact of the matter is that there are slaves in the world and some of them live in our world, whether we like it or not. Some of the best selling non-fiction works of the last few years have been about the trafficking of people across borders. Every once in a while a story surfaces about people who abuse slaves in their homes IN AMERICA, people who are often good citizens.

The dramatisation in this story does leave something to be derired but it is a very human tale of people who care in a commodity based world where the lives and existance of some people count for nothing. Indeed some of the reviews reflect that viewpoint.

In my view Trade does nothing more than open a chink in a blind. To get public attention on a worthwhile cause is difficult enough in a corporate media world and sometimes anything that can get a worthwhile message across to even a few people is worthwhile doing anyway.

Trade sends out an emotional message. Ask any mother how she would feel and act if her child was stolen and some understanding will be gained. If that message requires some additional drama to help than perhaps that is a good thing.

There is no such thing as a perfect movie, otherwise none of us would have anything to write about. I would encourage everyone who reads and writes on such pages as these to encourage as many people as possible to watch this movie and then to ask your local opinion formers what they are doing to end the scourge of slavery. And anyway, how many of us are aware of the slaves in our towns and cities? Are we so sure that such things could never happen where we live? June 26, 2008

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