Trade (2007)

Innocents Lost

Jorge (Cesar Ramos) is a 17-year-old punk mugger in Mexico City. When his 13-year-old sister Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) goes missing while riding the new bicycle Jorge gave her, he immediately tries to find her.

Veronika (Alicia Bachleda) is a young Polish woman who flies to the United States with a friend. They have been lured by the promise of becoming models and Veronika is in hopes of earning enough to bring her young son to America for "the good life."

Veronika befriends the young Adriana in the back of a seedy van being used to transport them into the international business of sex trafficking. Ray Sheridan (Kevin Kline), a cop from Texas who is searching for someone in Mexico, befriends Jorge and together they go on the trip of their lives trying to rescue Adriana who has been taken to New Jersey to be auctioned off on the internet.

An old friend of Sheridan's, Hank Jefferson (Tim Reid) is a cop in New Jersey and helps Sheridan at least learn some of the facts of the sex slave trade action in NJ.

Can Sheridan and Jorge find Adriana before she disappears completely into this dark, brutal world?

This is an important film that's received little recognition in the USA, probably because few want to admit this goes on in this country. Each year, more than one million people are trafficked across international borders against their will for sale in the sex trade.

Based on 2004 New York Times Magazine cover article by Peter Landesman, this film was directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner.

Rated R for disturbing sexual material involving minors, violence including a rape, language and some drug content.