Trade

Synopsis:

TRADE provides a compassionate look at an ugly world. In Mexico City, men kidnap13-year-old Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) with the intent of selling her virginity to the highest bidder.

Young Polish beauty Veronica (Alicja Bachleda) is held captive by the same men, and they threaten her young son across the ocean. As the criminals mistreat their victims, Veronica is Adrianas only solace as she is taken farther and farther away from home. Meanwhile, Adrianas older brother, Jorge (Cesar Ramos), begins to track his sister across the Mexican border into Texas and through the United States. On his mission, he runs into a Texas cop named Ray (Kevin Kline) who agrees to help him without ever really saying why.

Opinions:

The movie was a reflection of reality, discussing issues like human trafficking, drugs, corruption and street crimes etc. which are still common problems in Latin America, or rather around the world.

Human trafficking, a global issue that happens in every continent, from Asia to Latin America. The sad truth is that such things happened every day in our world, where many girls and boys are being kidnapped, and forced into being sex slaves.

In the movie, a boy was drugged, and sold to a pedophile. Another pretty young lady (Veronica) was cheated into the sex trade, when she ventured to Mexico in the hope of sending his son to U.S. When she realised her son was snatched away from home by the syndicate, and she chose to end her life in front of Manuel, one of the kidnappers. That was probably how true how life of these victimes eventually ended up in reality too.

Although Jorge eventually managed to save his sister from the clutch of those kidnappers, the show ended off with the child of kidnappers calling out "Dad!" after seeing his dad lying dead on the ground (he was stabbed by Jorge). That left me with such great impact. I am impressed with the director and scriptwriter of the movie by that last scene, which depicts how in real life, people involved in these crimes might also have their families, but for survival or for money, they might just choose such "occupation". This was similar to what Jorge did at the beginning of the movie - cheating tourists at the plaza and then robbing them at some deserted alley. There are probably many people out there on the streets of developing countries like those in Latin America, who chose to commit crimes for the sake of money.

A sad movie that has very profound meaning. Yet, the movie is simple to understand, with an interesting plot. The director has purposely left out not explaining explicitly if Ray eventually finds his daughter, and has chosen to leave it as a mystery till the end. However, the expression in Ray seemed to hint that the kidnapper could likely be his daughter, which indicates a deeper meaning to it...