Trade

Trade is a 2007 drama film directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner and starring Kevin Kline. It was produced by Roland Emmerich and Rosilyn Heller. The film premiered January 23, 2007, at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and opened in limited release on September 28, 2007. It is based on Peter Landesman's article "The Girls Next Door" about sex slaves, which was featured as the cover story in the January 24, 2004, issue of The New York Times Magazine. Plot The film follows two people who are kidnapped by an international sexual slavery gang in Mexico City. Adriana (Gaitán), a 13-year-old local girl, is captured while riding her bike. Veronica (Bachleda), a young woman from Poland, is kidnapped upon arriving at the airport. She soon realizes that the whole trip was orchestrated by the gang. They are held along with some Latin American women and a young Thai boy. Adriana's 17-year-old brother, Jorge, learns that his sister was kidnapped. He asks his friends to help him find her, but they balk when they learn how powerful the gang is. Jorge finds out that the kidnappers "sell" their victims as sex slaves through a connection in New Jersey. While searching for Adriana, he sees her among the other victims as they are hurried into a van by the kidnappers. He steals his friends' car and manages to follow the van to Juárez, but then loses track of it. Adriana, Veronica and the Thai boy are smuggled into the US with the help of corrupt Mexican policemen, but the group is caught by the US Border Patrol. The gang members keep the kidnapped people from telling the police that they were kidnapped by threatening to harm their families. The kidnappers and victims are sent back to Mexico, after which they sneak into the US again.