Trade

Starring: Kevin Kline, Paulina Gaitan, Cesar Ramos, Alicja Bachleda, Kate del Castillo, Anthony Crivello

Written by: Jose Rivera and Peter Landesman

Directed by: Marco Kreuzpaintner

Distributor: Roadside Attractions

Rated: R

Though unquestionably one of the gravest of human rights violations, the subject of black market slave trafficking has rarely been given prominent attention in a feature film. German director Marco Kreuzenpaintner (Summer Storm) tackles the issue in the deeply affecting film Trade. It’s a powerful drama that delves into the darker side of human nature with keen intellect and insight.

The film opens in the vast, decaying labyrinth of Mexico City, center of one of the poorest nations in the Americas. For many it’s a hopeless place, rife with despair. But even as the film opens, Kreuzenpaintner captures the humanity beyond the decay within this radiant abyss. Here we meet 13-year-old Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) and her 17-year-old brother, Jorge (Cesar Ramos).

Jorge loves his little sister dearly; for her thirteenth birthday, he gives Adriana a flashy bike purchased with money he’s mugged from tourists while posing as a pimp. When Adriana is kidnapped by people who intend to sell her to foreigners, Jorge makes it his business to track her down, using his contacts in organized crime to find out who took her. It’s a journey that finds him traveling over the border to New Jersey with an off-duty private investigator (Kevin Kline) who wants to help him.

Meanwhile, Ariana’s captors are also headed for New Jersey, having seized a number of other people to bring to a black market auction there. One of the captives – a beautiful Polish woman named Veronica (Alicja Bachleda) – acts as Adriana’s surrogate mother as both look for a way to escape. The film weaves between the storylines of Jorge and the investigator and Adriana and Veronica until all meet up in New Jersey in the climactic showdown with Laura, the femme fatale at the head of the operation.

Though Trade strays at times, there are provocative moments of complexity in both plot and characters. Kevin Kline plays a smart investigator who is never quite a hero. Jorge is obsessively driven to find his sister at any cost, but it may be just as much from personal guilt as brotherly love. Veronica makes sacrifices for Adriana, but her love for her own son in Poland also makes her do some pretty selfish things until the end, when her ultimate courage makes her fate the more tragic. While not every scene is equally well-realized, the overall feel flows more or less effectively between Hollywood thriller moments and intense, indie-quality drama, making Trade well worth seeing. VS