Mack Deen

I hate to give it two stars. Perhaps partly because I thought it was going to be really good movie and was expecting a masterpiece true story on a subject that is important. I believed the hype! SOME of the main events may have kept in the plot (as I’ve read the true accounts of what happened) but the character development was weak and from the beginning the main character seemed contrived, the dialogue was lazy and something the acting was off. I can’t quite pinpoint it. But it was a half step up from made for TV drama. The hero aspect played out throughout and there was a lack of real depth in this character other than he’s going to the third world….kick butt, take names correct the wrongs! How many times have we seen this plot? We learn that child traffickers are evil bad scum of the earth. I already knew that but many movies now use that as the easy template for the revenge aspect etc. Our hero from America is going to face the corrupt incompetent officials and the powerful bosses that runs the game etc. its true these aspects exist but in this movie it was a lazy typical development I’ve seen hundreds of times.. We miss any real complexities that exist with the human trafficking “industry”. These themes play out, our hero is good, religion (Christianity) becomes a component of good vs evil, Of course we also learn that there are SOME good people in places like Colombia who will follow our leader to prevail against the complacent and greedy official and politicians and just needed that savior aspect to be able to do what they were incapable of doing. When in fact countries like Colombia have been fighting the human trafficking problem for decades. The FARC (a communist gorilla org) was a major component of setting up human trafficking since the 70s and the country was in war with then for decades. They are actually experts now in the fight against human trafficking. The real story documents this but we miss this in the movie. In fact we miss any real context about the human trafficking business and any real complexities here. Also, since I have lived in Colombia and understand some of the dynamics of poverty, economics and culture there I feel it missed badly on the realistic aspects. I shouldn’t fault that too much (Hollywood has been missing the real Colombia for decades) but this was supposed to be a TRUE story on a real (and important subject. Overall the movie missed the great opportunity to be something more. And really came out as a contrived drama/action made for TV-movie about something that has far too much complex components that probability make creating a mainstream block-Buster impossible. But they didn’t even try…..