Review: Trafficked (2017)

Directed by: Will Wallace | 104 minutes | drama, thriller | Actors: Jason London, Elisabeth Röhm, Ashley Judd, Sean Patrick Flanery, Anne Archer, Brian Thompson, Madison Wolfe, Patrick Duffy, Courtney Gains, Efren Ramirez, Amiah Miller, Anjali Bhimani, Kelly Washington, Sapir Azulay, Matt Doran, Niki Koss , Duane Whitaker, Massi Furlan, Shae Smolik, Anjul Nigam, Rich Emberlin, Jacquelin Arroyo

Good intentions don’t make a good movie, unfortunately. “Trafficked” is living proof of that. This thriller aims to put the subject of human smuggling on the map. A noble goal and very important, but the clumsy way in which director Will Wallace highlights this theme makes little impression. A shame, because for this low budget thriller he has gathered a fairly impressive cast around him. Hollywood actors Ashley Judd and Sean Patrick Flanery, for example, feature in this production. As said, it does not provide a significant spectacle.

In “Trafficked” attention is paid to human smuggling. Millions of vulnerable girls and women worldwide are forced to work in the sex industry by human traffickers. Sex slavery is about $ 100 billion a year. This film highlights the stories of three girls from America, Nigeria and India. After this trio has been traded by a worldwide network of human, organ and drug traffickers, the trio ends up in a Texan brothel. An escape attempt is initiated.

The biggest flaw with “Trafficked” is the casting and the script. Screenwriter Siddharth Kara is a Harvard professor and responsible for the book on which this film is based. Writing a book is different than writing a story for a movie. “Trafficked” is characterized by artificial dialogues and wooden play. In addition, the main characters are not well portrayed and the three girls never rise above their caricature setting (the young mother in search of a better life, an Indian student who wants to go to a prestigious American university and the American who has been betrayed by a social worker). .

The villains do not come out well either. The characters get stuck in characters. Ashley Judd, for example, does not manage to portray a full-fledged character in the role of mean social worker and does not get further than the interpretation of a character. Flanery also fails to turn his sadistic brothel owner into a person of flesh and blood. The acting is flat.

“Trafficked” lingers on the surface and fails to portray the problem of human smuggling convincingly. Unfortunately. A better script and more elaborated characters would have helped this film. Now it remains a meritorious effort and a weak effect.