Trade (2007)

It feels almost evil to spend time criticizing a movie about girls, women, and boys being kidnapped and sold as sex slaves. I mean, really...how petty is it to complain that a movie doesn't really work when there are, right now, thousands of children being abused by pedophiles? But, criminy -- there's a gimme of an interesting subject and the film turns it into a sentimental (and awfully convenient) buddy tale.

We see Adriana get snatched off of her new bicycle -- the bicycle her mother told her NOT TO RIDE -- in broad daylight. So, I guess the moral of the story is "obey your mother or you might become a sex slave"? We see Jorge, Adriana's brother, entice a American tourist into a deserted side street with the promise of cheap sex only to rob him blind. So, maybe the moral of the story is "don't promise sex without delivering or your sister may, karmically, be stuck paying your debt"?

We also see Jorge jump into the trunk of a car that just so happens to belong to Ray (Kevin Kline), a cop who -- wouldn't you know it -- happens to have a personal interest in human trafficking as the rumor is that the daughter he's never met was sold to support her mother's drug habit. That turns on us to the real moral of the story: "no matter how impossible a situation, a contrived movie script can work it out -- even throwing in a fluffy kitten in a basket (no joke)!"

C-