User Reviews

Trade has some very powerful and wrenching moments but there are too many contrivances to make it a truly convincing film. Jorge, the brother, happens to see someone riding his sister's bike and is able to track down his sister's abductors in a teeming Mexico City hours after she is abducted. In the City's chaos ,he loses sight of the truck transporting his sister, stops for a drink, looks out the window of the store, and there it is again. Jorge later hops in the trunk of a car, which by chance, is the car of a cop also looking for a missing child so he has a ride and an expert in his chase. A stop for breakfast in a random diner allows them to happen upon a pervert who happens to have the web site and passwords for the precise sex auction involving the sister. And then the good guys and the bad guys, in their respective vehicles, drive from Texas to New Jersey ( like its a few miles away) in record time to all meet up for the finale. Even the sentimental ending has the sister arriving back in Mexico City with her brother after being saved,stops at the Church where her mother, at the precise time of her arrival, is in church praying for her return. The film obviously exposes the tragedy of sex trafficking in helpless minors and some scenes, like the one where the sister is rented to a pervert in a field are compelling, but the plot did not have to rely so heavily on coincidence and contrivance.

Major Spoilers

Trade treads a precarious line between serious-minded social drama and thriller with only partial success. While it is extremely gripping and harrowing for much of its running time and manages to expose the obscene trafficking of children and women for the purposes of prostitution without sensationalising, it does suffer from some serious lapses in logic and a final reel that is as close as you well get to seeing a decent film self-destructing.

Kevin Kline plays Ray, a middle-aged policeman searching for a daughter he believed was another man's. Cesar Ramos is Jorge, a 17-year-old Mexican grifter fleecing tourists in Mexico city, whose 13-year-old sister is abducted by slave traffickers while riding the bicycle he bought for her with his ill-gotten gains. Their paths cross on their individual searches and, while the trail of Ray's daughter has long grown cold, Jorge's little sister is still capable of being saved.

I was hooked early on. The storyline quickly establishes the main characters (although Kline's could have been introduced earlier) before submerging the viewer in a brutal world of abduction, rape and human slave trafficking. The story unfolds with a pace that is both compelling and harrowing as inhumanities are heaped upon Jorge's sister and a Polish woman lured to America with false promises of a new life (well, not so false when you think about it). About halfway through, though, the film starts to wobble, with previously intelligent characters making dubious decisions that really leave you feeling let down.

Until the final reel, though, the film is still reasonably believable, and we still care about what happens to the characters. Until Manuelo opens the door to check on Ray and the girl, that is. That's when credibility is abandoned with unseemly haste and a ludicrous Hollywood ending tacked on to an otherwise worthwhile film. I mean, really. The guy has been transporting humans across the border, selling them into sexual slavery for God only knows how long, and the pleas (and veiled threat) of one small girl is going to provoke a change of character? Even given all the subtle signs throughout the picture, it's a development that's incredibly difficult to accept. In reality, Manuelo would have seen exposing Ray as an impostor as a way of redeeming himself for allowing the Polish girl to commit suicide and recovering most of the money he lost from her sale by allowing the young girl to be re-sold once Ray was dealt with.

Anyway, once this miraculous change of heart has occurred another takes place with the timely arrival of the NYPD just at the moment they are needed (as, I'm sure, they always do arrive in the nick of time, sirens blaring only when they're one corner away, in real life.

It's such a shame that the ending was so poor, that the writer couldn't think of a more believable final act but I guess, having painted the police as a corrupt, uncaring bureaucracy a number of time throughout, he felt obliged to plant them on white horses for the final scenes.

This movie...is not a feel good movie. It doesn't give you the warm-fuzzy's. As a matter of fact, this movie made me realize just how sick and demented humanity can really and truly be.

Right off the bat, we're introduced to Jorge and his younger sister Adriana, it's her 13th birthday. Jorge gets her a new bike, much to his mother's chagrin. She decides to take it for a spin one day, and unfortunately finds herself in captivity.

Adriana is thrown into this downward spiraling world of sick sick sick people. The only solace she finds is in a much older fellow captive named Veronica, a Polish girl. Their only common ground is that they both speak a small bit of English. Veronica treats Adriana with a sister-like love, and defends her honor and sticks up for her if, and when at all possible.

Jorge, meanwhile, is left alone, distraught, and at a loss. He finds aide in a detective from Texas named Ray(played brilliantly by Kline), whom he finds curiously investigating one of the holding areas that Adriana was being detained. Together, they use what resources Ray has to save Adriana from inevitable slavery and hopefully put an end to whatever system was being run out of the United States.

This is not a movie for young children or even older ones at that. Rape and child molestation is rampant. If you are queasy from watching that kind of human waste, then consider yourself normal, and you may not want to watch this. I, felt the need to watch it, it truly opened my eyes in a way that earlier releases on Juarez, Mexico and other Mexican border towns just didn't. Think of it as similar to Schindler's List.

Kevin Kline said it best. (paraphrased in so many words from the bonus features in the DVD) If you're reading the newspaper, and the world's events, god willing that's what they still are, and you read it from cover to cover, and you think "hmmm....I should do something about that." Then perhaps this movie will inspire you.

This film was emotionally jarring to the very core. That being said, this film was fantastic beyond any assumption I had; and I had high expectations going into this. It's moving, it stirs the mind, it makes you THINK. Personally, I think that's important in this day and age.

There's a possibility that filmmaker made a research for this film through reading various articles in the newspaper. "Trade" is uninspired melodrama that seems too afraid to be what it really meant to be. Sex trade industry is an interesting and controversial subject to discuss about, but what we've here is only half-baked, incredibly shallow unfinished project.

Three different stories have interwoven into one film. But the plot begins in Mexico City. Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) is 13-years-old girl who lived in the ghetto with her mother and her brother, Jorge (Cesar Ramos). One day, she was kidnapped while she rode a bicycle. In the meantime, Veronika (Alicja Bachleda-Curus) is a polish girl who searching for an opportunity in America. But she was tricked by travel agency and landing in Mexico instead of America. Not soon after landed, she's also kidnapped by the same group of people. Adriana and Veronika are two of a bunch young girls (and boys) who have to across the border led by Manuelo (Marco Pérez) in order to be sold in America.

After his younger sister is missing, Jorge decided to chase a truck that seemed to carry them across the border. Once they reach a city border, he finds Ray Sheridan (Kevin Kline), a policeman who came to Mexico with a personal mission. Jorge decided to hide in Ray's car trunk. Once Ray found out about it, they're already across the border. Jorge explained his reason to Ray and somehow Ray seemed to believe him. So they head to New Jersey where the bidding of Jorge's sister will take place and, by that, they have to do any mean necessary to stop it.

At social commentary point-of-view, "Trade" is right on target. It's right thing to explore and condemn the world of sex trade industry. But at the story point-of-view, it's complete failure. There's not a single one of three stories that will left you stunned. The main story about two young siblings is pretty weak and by-the-number melodrama. The major problem is an actor who plays Jorge, his inexperienced acting method sometime cause unintentional funny scenes. Ray's story also rather disappointing, once we've found out the reason he travels all the way to Mexico, it's not strong enough to make us care for his issue. And we can see that the filmmaker tried his best to link the sibling's situation to Ray's personal issue. But in the end, the execution is pretty awkward and feels forced. Even in Veronika's story which she did the most horrify thing that happened in the movie, it felt coming out of nowhere.

The film also falls short in consistency in both visual and character's characterization. In the beginning, they decided to use hyper active kind-of style in camera operating. With hand-held and everything, they seemed to be pretty interesting to look at (especially an opening scene with a memorable Spanish song). But as the story progressed, they changed their style to conventional style, with dolly and crane that was completely opposite to the first half. And there's irritating bad guy who supposed to make us believe that his life lives between gray areas. But somehow, it really didn't matter at all because the filmmaker decided to ignore his story altogether and, by that, makes our journey with this character seemed unnecessary.

The fate of this film fell upon the first paragraph. "Trade" appears to be a great article in the newspaper. But as a film, "Trade" is depressingly joyless drama. It's like every angle of this film suck the life out of the story a little by a little. And what we have left here is only series of beautiful and controversial photographs that barely worth calling themselves as cinema.

I saw the movie yesterday and I can say that I was amazed by the performances of Adriana Gaitan and Alicja Bachleda, mostly of the last one.

Alicja plays Veronica, a young girl that is kidnapped, raped, beaten, but somehow find in Adriana a way to keep herself alive now that she feels she has to protect the young girl. Alicja gives to the movie the humanity that is necessary for this kind of plot, at the same time Veronica is fragile and fearful, she's also strong and brave.

Alicja's performance is so strong and that her simply presence in the movie made us wanna watch it. In fact, her death was necessary, but at the same time is hard, because in spite her character wasn't written for being the star, she definitely is.

The high level of Alicja's performance can be seen in many scenes of the movie, but especially in the scene where she is raped when we can feel her helpless and her shame through her hopeless eyes noting with regret that she did the wrong choice.

It's a gripping, uncompromising story of the kidnapping, brutalizing, smuggling, and sale of young women and boys, from Mexico into the United States. It's hard to tear yourself away from the screen for fear you'll miss what degradation comes next for the two kidnapees from Mexico City that the story follows -- Alicja Bachleda, a strikingly beautiful young woman, and Paulina Gaitan, a scared thirteen-year-old girl. The latter is the sister of Cesar Ramos, a tough urban teenager. Ramos hooks up with Kevin Kline, whose own daughter disappeared, possibly kidnapped, years ago.

The kidnappers' idea is to get the two girls to New Jersey in time for an internet auction at which sex slaves are sold to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, along the highways, the girls are rented out at isolated spots to pervs who use them for as long as it takes to boil an egg. Going rate -- eighty dollars. Gaitan, however, is a virgin and they want to keep her that way because she'll bring a higher price in the Garden State. She is rented out too, but I guess remains what high schoolers call a technical virgin.

Kline, a cop, and the vengeful Ramos are in pursuit, not knowing exactly what they're looking for until the contrived ending. The two begin by hating each other but wind up fast friends, naturally. The narrative demands it. The acting is marvelous on the part of just about all the principles. Kevin Kline's performance may be the weakest. He seems almost too tired to be bothered with the role, but maybe resignation is what the role calls for.

Best performance -- envelope, please -- the madam who keeps half a dozen young girls locked away in the basement. She's always smiling but, my God, she looks evil. Her high cheekbones and her eyes at their alarming dihedral lend her a resemblance to Morticia Adams, but more -- reptilian. And she delivers delightfully, demanding that Kline, in order to prove he's not a cop, consummate his perverse lust for the thirteen-year old on the spot -- "And I want to see blood on the sheets". I can't find her among the credits -- maybe it's Kathleen Gati but I'm not at all sure.

There is no nudity and no simulated intercourse, only the suggestion of them. The story itself is powerful enough to carry the message. But, then, what IS the message? The epilogue claims definitively that the CIA estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 people are kidnapped and smuggled into the United States, like these two girls. But as far as I can determine, the CIA has made no such estimate. The best the CIA has been able to come up with is 45,000 to 50,000, and not all of them are kidnapped for sexual purposes. The fact is that it's extremely difficult to make a good guess because the data just aren't there.

In the 1930s they made innumerable movies about "social problems" like "gangsterism." J. Edgar Hoover warned all of us to be on the lookout for spreading gangsterism in 1950. Or the problem might be reefers or gambling. The drama in this film is tumultuous but maybe what's called for is a dispassionate and reasoned approach. What this film does -- and does very well -- is contribute to the "mean world hypothesis" in which we believe we must live surrounded by scoundrels, enemies, murderers, and sex traffickers. The world isn't really "mean". It's just indifferent.

In the slums of Mexico City, the small time teenager thief Jorge (Cesar Ramos) gives a bike to his beloved sister Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) on her thirteenth anniversary under the protest of their mother. While riding early in the morning, Adriana is kidnapped by members of an international network of sex traffickers. Meanwhile, the gorgeous Polish single mother Veronika (Alicia Bachleda) arrives in Mexico City with a friend lured with the promise of a work in USA in a model agency by the same criminal gang. While transported to New Jersey, the two girls become friends and Veronika protects Adriana as much as she can. Meanwhile, Jorge desperately seeks his sister in the red light zone of Mexico. He witnesses children and the women being loaded as cargo in a truck and he tracks them trying to save his sister. When he arrives in Juarez, he sees the Texan investigator Ray Sheridan (Kevin Kline), who is chasing a missing daughter, in the house where his sister was lodged. He hides himself in the trunk of Ray's car and once in USA, Ray finds him and is convinced to help the boy in his quest.

Human trafficking is a sad reality of the contemporary days and together with drugs and weapons, they form the three greatest illegal worldwide trades. The societies need to give more attention to this profitable slavery of the Twentieth-First Century and consequent use of the victims in sexual tourism and other types of sexual exploitation, creating laws, investigating and punishing these sick and mean criminals. The way the children and the girls are treated like cattle, used and abused by perverts and sent from one man to another, is disgusting. The children and girls are abducted through different means, but in common, they become victims of a powerful international network of sex traffickers. "Trade" is the fourth great movie that I have watched about this sad reality. "Lilja 4-ever" and "Anjos do Sol" are extremely pessimist and realistic, but focused in the life of only one character. "Human Trafficking" gives a big picture how these gangs operate, following the drama of three lead characters. "Trade" is less crude and more Holywoodian, but it is still a very good film. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Desaparecidos" ("Missing")

Trade is a brutal film filled with strong performances about a subject matter almost taboo to discuss - the sex trafficking of children and teens across the world. If you haven't read "The Girls Next Door," the article by Petr Landesman which inspired the film, you should give it a quick glance before you go, it is available online.

I called the film brutal and it is. There is a prolonged rape scene, several scenes where the kidnappers force feed the girls drugs and beat them as well as sexually and emotionally abusing them.

Although well made with strong performances across the board I did have mixed reactions to the film. The storytelling wasn't quite up to par and relied on strange twists and a force-fed happy ending that really deflates the experience and left me somewhat ambivalent rather than passionate about the film, one way or another.

I would still recommend the film for those who know what they are getting into before hand and can stomach the subject matter. You can read my full review on RazorFine Review.

"Trade", directed by Marco Cruzpaintner, is well filmed and edited movie with good pacing and a coherent storyline. The filmmakers waste little time in setting up a pursuit-type plot and then adeptly goes through International locations and scenery. (major spoiler) My only complaint in the whole movie happens about the 2/3 point of the movie in a implausible scene that has the kidnapped Polish and Mexican Kidnapped able to flee and running into a town where instead of seeking out help goto a phone booth (?!) where the elder Polish gal collect-calls Poland (!!) - really, and then worse yet both fail to run away the moment they see their captors van down the street. That scene was quite poor, and yet the one and only solitary issue I had with the story. Thus forgivable. Otherwise, I very much enjoyed the relationship between the characters of Ray and Jorge - acted by Kline and Ramos. The dialog for them was quite well written. Recommended.