Trade

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

When a 13-year-old Mexican girl (Paulina Gaitan) is "sold" to sex traffickers and shipped across the border into the U.S., her 17-year-old brother (Cesar Ramos) begins a frantic search to find her before it's too late. Her only friend during this ordeal is a young Polish woman (Alicja Bachleda) who fell into the same trap. As they try to evade their fate, her brother enlists the aid of a plainclothes police officer (Kevin Kline) harboring his own family tragedy involving sex slaves to help him in his quest. Their journey takes them across the U.S. through underground trafficking operations and finally to a house in New Jersey, where a tense game is played out to rescue the girl as the clock ticks away. Trade, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, is a bone-chilling, disturbing thriller about a forbidden subject the government would probably like to sweep under the rug. It's a vital and powerfully effective picture that will make you want to stand up and take action. In fact, it seems entirely appropriate that the film's premiere earlier last week made history by taking place at the United Nations. It's superbly written by Jose Rivera (The Motorcycle Diaries) and directed by emerging young German talent Marco Kreuzpaintner, and has a flawless cast of mostly unknown young actors (with the exception of the ever-reliable Kline) who make it all seem so real it could be a documentary. In fact, as the film points out, the increasing numbers of these kinds of cases right in our own backyards is a great hidden secret in the U.S. and (as presented here at least) will probably shock audiences unaware the problem even existed. For many reasons this is a movie that should—and must—be seen.