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Movies / On DVD / Trade
Trade

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Trade (2007)

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Reviews Counted: 65

Fresh: 18

Rotten:47

Average Rating: 4.7/10

Consensus: With an exploitative style that seems more suited for TV shows like CSI, Trade's message about the reality of child exploitation is easily lost.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for disturbing sexual material involving minors, violence including a rape, language and some drug content

Runtime: 2 hrs

Genre: Kidnapping And Missing Persons, Thriller, Exploitation, , Crime/Conspiracy, Rape, Theatrical Release, Crime

Theatrical Release:Sep 28, 2007 Limited

Box Office: $118,086

Synopsis: At once soft-hearted and hard-edged, 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... At once soft-hearted and hard-edged, 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 Adriana's only solace as she is taken farther and farther away from home. Meanwhile, Adriana's 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. TRADE isn't escapist fare: it's a socially conscious film that doesn't flinch from the most painful of details about the sex trade. There's rape, pedophilia, and suicide, and the film doesn't look away or glance over the horrors. This is German director Marco Kreuzpainter's first film on these shores, but he works like an assured veteran. After working for decades in the film industry, Kline is often most highly praised for his work in comedies such as DAVE and A FISH CALLED WANDA, but he's quite adept in this serious drama. Young actors Ramos and Gaitan are making their major feature debut with TRADE, but they both communicate the fear and frustration of their characters with remarkable skill. [More]

Starring: Kevin Kline, Cesar Ramos, Alicja Bachleda, Paulina Gaitan

Starring: Kevin Kline, Cesar Ramos, Alicja Bachleda, Paulina Gaitan, Kate Del Castillo, Anthony Crivello, Zack Ward

Director: Marco Kreuzpaintner

Director: Marco Kreuzpaintner
Screenwriter: Jose Rivera
Story: Peter Landesman, Jose Rivera
Producer: Roland Emmerich, Roslyn Heller
Composer: Jacobo Lieberman, Leonardo Heiblum
Studio: Lions Gate Films

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Release:

Jan 29, 2008

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Reviews for Trade

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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If only the whole matched the power and potency of the details. Masquerades as a searing exposé, but turns out to be a lurid and overwrought account.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
12/12/08
Ian Freer
Empire Magazine

As cinema, ‘Trade’ is flawed: the script is functional and the dry characters are hemmed in by the machinations of an unremarkable plot.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
12/12/08
Tom Huddlestone
Time Out

Such difficult subject matter requires a harder-edged delivery, but hopefully this accessible drama will therefore get its message across to a wider audience.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
12/12/08
Jim Hall
Channel 4 Film

This cockeyed odd-couple road movie is well-intentioned, but it comes perilously close to feeding off the crimes it condemns.

Full Review Source: Times [UK] | comment Comment
12/12/08
James Christopher
Times [UK]

Is it possible to agree with what a film is saying while disliking the way it says it? Trade leaves no arm untwisted and no message unrammed.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
12/12/08
Xan Brooks
Guardian [UK]

Kline and the talented Gaitan do their best to engage on a human level, but ending with various sobering stats about the global sex trade only underlines the film’s woefully misplaced dramatic emphasis.

Full Review Source: Sky Movies | comment Comment
12/12/08
Elliott Noble
Sky Movies

Jose Rivera's script plays uneasily, as do some of the directorial flourishes: the shots of rose stems and caged birds are galumphingly emphatic at moments that need no underlining.

Full Review Source: Independent | comment Comment
12/12/08
Independent

With terrific performances and strong direction throughout, this hard-hitting thriller delivers a powerful wake-up call.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
12/12/08
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

This involving film is weakened by a script that tries to create a formulaic thriller out of an important subject matter.

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment 1 Comment
12/12/08
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

Trade is a dreadfully hollow film, empty of everything except pretension and self-importance posing as art.

Full Review Source: Colorado Springs Gazette | comment Comment
02/28/08
Brandon Fibbs
Colorado Springs Gazette

Just misses making its urgent point, which was surely the purpose of this emotionally stirring, troubling film, by turning up the excessively convoluted melodrama, and turning its eyes away from the sociopolitical issues that sex slavery thrives on.

Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | comment Comment
01/20/08
Prairie Miller
NewsBlaze

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Time Out New York | comment Comment
01/18/08
Mark Holcomb
Time Out New York

A documentary about sex trafficking might have been more powerful. Dramatizing the subject in this fashion, with a race-against-time road trip, breathless online bidding and a couple of different happy endings, simply cheapens it.

Full Review Source: Associated Press | comment Comment
12/03/07
Christy Lemire
Associated Press
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Yes, a conventional documentary about sex slavery would probably be more illuminating. It would also be more unbearable.

Full Review Source: Capital Times (Madison, WI) | comment Comment
10/26/07
Rob Thomas
Capital Times (Madison, WI)

Trade has cojones for trying to lay the kind of political guilt trip it does on us with its sham aesthetics and lurid telenovela-writ-large storyline.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
10/19/07
Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine

What ultimately tips the scales is its determination to avoid sentimentality.

Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | comment Comment
10/06/07
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Tremendously sincere but at times brutal drama.

Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | comment Comment
10/06/07
Marrit Ingman
Austin Chronicle

The filmmaker tries to keep the energy up and the audience engaged by incorporating stylistic touches from the Michael Bay 101 crib sheet, whirling the camera around characters in crisis and lacing scenes with hack guitar rock.

Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger | comment Comment
10/05/07
Lisa Rose
Newark Star-Ledger
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

incredible -- in the literal, non-complimentary sense...

Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | comment Comment
10/05/07
Jim Lane
Sacramento News & Review

Grim, hard to take, and nightmare-producing, Trade is not for the faint of heart.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
10/03/07
Rex Reed
New York Observer
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Latest News for Trade

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September 02, 2007: Just misses making its urgent point, which was surely the purpose of this emotionally stirring, troubling film, by turning up the excessively convoluted melodrama, and turning its eyes away from the sociopolitical issues that sex slavery thrives on. Opens in new window
More...

September 02, 2007: Trade diverts its enormously disturbing subject matter into its own apolitical comfort zone, where the reality is clear but resolutions clouded over. Opens in new window
More...

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