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'Trade'

Rating:

BY JOHN ANDERSON | Special to Newsday

September 28, 2007

An unusual commodity - a genuine dramatic thriller with a social agenda - "Trade" takes the reluctant viewer by the hand and leads him along the sex-slave trail leading from Mexico to the eastern United States.

According to the intelligent script by Jose Rivera ("The Motorcycle Diaries"), such Internet-reliant evil is a global phenomenon, but via director Marco Kreuzpaintner's story-driven procedural we focus on Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) a 13-year-old abducted by slavers and transported through a gauntlet of corrupt cops and oblivious passersby to a destiny worse than death.

Adriana's desperate brother (Cesar Ramos), following her zigzagging path, hooks up with a Texas cop (Kevin Kline) who has his own score to settle, and together they track the traffickers while indirectly debating NAFTA through the metaphor of coerced prostitution. Kline is solid, but not much more; Alicja Bachleda, who plays Adriana's protector, Veronica, is more the movie's star.

The premise alone may put some audiences off - underage girls and predatory men are less of a draw than one might imagine. But those audiences should cowboy up and hit the theaters, because "Trade" is as gripping as it is important.

TRADE (R). 1:59. (adult content, language, violence). At the Empire 25, the 64th & 2nd theater, Chelsea Cinema, and the Angelika Film Center, all in Manhattan.