'Trade'

The global phenomenon of human trafficking - innocent young people kidnapped for forced labor or sexual slavery - includes thousands of victims each year. For those of us in the United States, the phenomenon is much closer to home than we might guess.

"Trade" (Roadside) is a hard-hitting (and likewise, sometimes hard-to-watch) film that may raise the profile of this global disgrace by presenting the fictional story of Adriana (Paulina Gaitan), a 13-year-old girl kidnapped off a Mexico City street while riding her new bicycle. Trundled into a car, she finds herself in the clutches of hard-as-nails Vadim (Pasha D. Lychnikoff) and Manuelo (Marco Perez), for whom the girl is merely fresh meat to be sold into the sex trade. Her delinquent 17-year-old brother, Jorge (Cesar Ramos), follows her to the United States after she is smuggled across the border, through the so-called "sex tunnels." (Jorge blames himself for Adriana's disappearance since she was riding a bike he had given her without their mother's permission.) He slips into the country by hiding in the trunk of a car belonging to Texas cop Ray (Kevin Kline), who discovers the stowaway and, for poignant reasons that come out near the end of the film, is moved to help Jorge rescue his sister, after the authorities prove themselves distressingly indifferent. Thereafter, Ray and Jorge must race to find Adriana, who will soon be held in a so-called stash house in New Jersey and auctioned to the highest online bidder. German director Marco Kreuzpaintner's gritty and uncompromising film (inspired by a 2003 award-winning New York Times Magazine story, "Sex Slaves on Main Street," by Peter Landesman) also charts the parallel experience of a young Polish woman, Veronica (Alicja Bachleda), who is kidnapped by the same gang and does her best to shield Adriana from her abductors. The film utilizes a standard TV procedural format to raise awareness of a problem that involves thousands of victims each year. But conventional though it is, the film holds your interest. Gaitan and Bachleda are extremely sympathetic as the victims, while Ramos does well as callous youth turned passionate savior of his sister. Kline submerges his star personality - perhaps a bit too much so - to fit the docudrama approach. If the personal story of his strained relationship with his wife (Linda Emond) is rather prosaic, and the script by Jose Rivera (who penned "The Motorcycle Diaries" concerning Che Guevara's early life) itself is often too pat in its coincidences and neat resolution, the film nonetheless delivers where it counts: raising awareness of a horrific web of cruelty. Both Adriana and Veronica are shown to have religious beliefs, and even one of the traffickers prays devoutly at one moment, an improbable contrivance with a dramatic payoff later on. Though the very rough language and sexual content (little actual nudity) quotas are high, their inclusion is arguably justified in suggesting the horrors these girls must endure, and shedding light on the underpublicized issue of human trafficking. Still, these elements may limit its appeal to a wide Catholic audience, who could be turned off by the seedy elements. The film contains an extremely high quotient of rough and crude language and profanity, a brutal rape involving a minor, brief rear nudity, strong sexual content including implied situations with minors, brutal violence, a vigilante killing, pedophilia, drug use and suicide. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L - limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R - restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. - - - Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops