Trade of Innocents

So glad to see a film exposing the reality of child trafficking. Much more relaxing and comfortable(?) to go and watch the Desolation of Smaug but this is about the desolation of children and you need to see it. Thought Mira Sorvino did a great job as the mother trying to cope with the overwhelming horror of seeing children being destroyed by greed, both sexual and monetary, this was well portrayed. However I had a problem with the role that Dermot Mulroney played (not his acting - he's good) in that he came across as the arrogant American. I really wish the scriptwriter had gone for a different approach here as the movie has been given world-wide release and people are rather over the "I know better than you do, I'm American" type of persona. I would have gone and worked with someone else if I'd been the Aussie! I just wish that someone now would do a film about closing down the market from a different angle. This was about stopping the "product" being available but what about a film wiping out the revolting "purchasers"? No buyers, no market. Great acting by Trieu Tran, John Billingsley and the children.

So many films on child and human trafficking are coming out, it's hard to keep up. Trade Of Innocents is a well meaning film on the subject. It just isn't the best. It concerns a grieving couple (Sorvino and Mulroney), trying to come to terms with the death of their daughter. They support a organization, helping to rescue kids who are being pimped out, to foreign pedophiles, as such a middle aged guy (a creepy John Bilingsley- Croc 3). He's the stereotypical pedophile, where they're are so many instances in Trade Of Innocents, that are clichéd, it's tense building up to finale, kind of strengthens it, livens it, and redeems it, but by this time, it's really too late. I did find bits of the film, were just weak and linear. I like Dermot Mulroney, and it was good to see him here, as I haven't seen much of him nowadays, but one feels he was miscast, where obviously Sorvino, outside of acting, has taken a personal and vested interest in this cruel trade, very much mirroring her character in Human Trafficking, where here, she's not as strong a character as she was in the latter, but shows the same initiative. The Aussie who's part of the anti trafficking organization, was a different angle, but desperate one, as was stereotypical like how his fate turned out and going undercover to buy some girls, as you see in many HT documentaries, like Dateline whatever, where too a nice bike chase, added some other tension, besides the norm of scenes you see in these slavery dramas. The film does throw in some smart tricks, as in Mulroney's character, like surreptitiously taking a photo of child and pedo in a bar, but really doesn't change the fact that this is just a more weaker film as to say Human Trafficking, Trade or Lilet Never happened. Yet still the film shows a likable initiative in a not so bad drama, for people who like this topic, a manifold of dramas probe.

I won't slam this film for being a poorly disguised Christian-value morality pusher. I won't knock it for it's 3rd-grade script and monotone actors. I'm not even going to examine the scores of plot-holes and racist inaccuracies present in an obviously NGO-funded and bible- thumper backed waste of space in my BitTorrent stream.

Instead I'd like to point out that this film, supposedly made about Cambodia and "based on real events" has:

a) Not a single Cambodian actor in the entire film

b) Not a single line of dialog that sounds Khmer

c) Not a single actual shot of Cambodia, Siem Reap, or Angkor Wat

d) Not a single shred of present-day reality

This movie will only shock & surprise those whom are easily fooled. The flimsy story-line and cheesy dialog, "I trained my whole life for this!", are enough to make milk curdle. Yeah, we know child trafficking sucks, we know people are working to stop it, but we're not dull enough to believe that it's as black & white as it's poorly portrayed here.

The thing that really gets me is that I saw the three actors, the only white guys in the movie, out together in Soi Cowboy during the making of the film. Really? You're gonna make a movie about how terrible the sex trade is and then go get a 16-year-old lap dance and boom boom when you've punched off the clock?

Scratch what I said above. There was one thing right about this movie, the pedophile go away in the end. That's what happens in 99.999% of the cases, they go back home from their holiday without hassle (incidentally, 19 out of 20 sex trade customers come from the same continent).

I wish filmmakers could stop themselves from making films about a country that they know nothing about and can't even bring themselves to hire someone from that country to help make the movie. It's insulting, demeaning, and racist. But hey, what do I know, Thais, Cambodians, Vietnamese -- heck, even Chinese -- they all look the same and a stupid Western audience won't be able to see or hear the difference, right?

This could have been so much better if they had found some actors that could actually "ACT" Dermot Mulroney and Mira Sorvino could have been replaced by two planks of wood and no one would have noticed the difference.

The Asian villain over acted his heart out! He never gave up, like a cornered rat he put up a fight.

The subject matter was never going to be an easy one to deal with, however, it was over simplified and put together like something from a Christian NGO workshop training video.

One really annoying thing about it other than the two main actors was the jumping between subtitles when the actors were "speaking Khmer" or whatever it was they were speaking and then the same actors talking in English for some reason. They should have just left it one way or the other.

Certainly not the worst movie around, but pretty poor mainly due to the pathetic script and bad acting.

Even well-made films dealing with truly disturbing issues have a hard time finding a sensitive and appreciative audience. This film unfolds like the great films of old when storytelling and solid acting were as much appreciated as people jumping off a hundred story building and everything blowing up (I like those movies too but sometimes I don't mind having to think when watching a film). Trade of Innocents is compelling to watch, makes me want to take action, all the while caught-up in a beautiful shot film with actors I have always enjoyed. Sometimes the best films simply make you feel something very human. This one did that for me and I don't ask movies to do much more. I'm glad I saw it.