Trade

Experience, sensitivity, maturity, level-headedness - these are essential requirements for anyone tackling a subject as serious and emotive as the sex trade.

But in forging a crass, 24-style thriller from such abhorrence, it’s clear that  - however good his intentions - 28-year-old director Marco Kreuzpaintner is lacking in all departments.

Pacing, editing and visual flair are not his problem. Indeed, as the director of nuance-free blockbusters like Godzilla and 10,000BC, it’s also obvious that producer Roland Emmerich sees something of himself in his fellow countryman.

Yet despite being based on a New York Times magazine article, Trade is effectively Traffic for dummies, beginning in Mexico City with terrified Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) being manhandled into a van on her 13th birthday.

Taken to the kidnappers’ den, she is made to watch as Veronika (Alicia Bachleda), a young, Polish single mother lured to America by the same gang, is raped by her Russian captor.

On learning Adriana’s fate, her streetwise brother Jorge (newcomer Cesar Ramos) finds himself in solo pursuit as the traders head to New Jersey with their human wares.

Just when it looks as though Jorge will lose the gang at the border, he comes across a man from Texas (Kevin Kline) snooping round their safehouse. Bingo - a free ride to America.

As luck would have it, his driver - Ray – is a cop. But instead of handing his cocky stowaway over to the authorities, Ray decides to join the rescue mission.

Heavy-handed doesn’t even come close as Kreuzpaintner and screenwriter Jose Rivera demand our utmost respect for their theme while wrapping it in a cliché-riddled plot, designed for thrills and convenience.

It's a sickening world and tragedy and brutality are to be expected. But can they not see the distastefulness and sheer irony of presenting the online auction of a kidnapped girl as an exciting spectator event?

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.

Elliott Noble