Troubling signs are as immediate as the opening credits, in which the eye is assaulted with jazzed-up, touristy views of Mexico City. A robbery of an absurdly naive white Yanqui tourist transmits the unambiguous message that Mexico is a crime-filled cesspool. Warned by his mom that going to the city's main plaza, the Zocolo, is too dangerous (which would be news to natives and visitors alike), Jorge (Cesar Ramos) goes there to con travelers out of their cash.

Meanwhile, Jorge's 13-year-old sister Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) can't wait to ride the bike he has given her. She's immediately abducted by what Jorge soon learns is a Russian network of sex slave traders.

Incredibly, in a city of nearly 20 million, Jorge is able to spot Adriana being manhandled by Russian thug Youchenko (Pasha D. Lychnikoff) and coyote Manuelo (Marco Perez) -- and to follow the crooks' truck 1,200 miles to the border city of Juarez without being spotted.

Going to the cops is pointless, since the pic informs us that all Mexican cops are corrupt and worse. Rather, Jorge finds an ally in a Texas gringo and a federal insurance fraud investigator named Ray (Kevin Kline, in possibly the most stark miscasting of his career), though the slightly roughneck and demonstrably uncivilized Mexican and the meticulously clean and classical music-loving American battle briefly before becoming loyal allies.

Director Marco Kreuzpainter carries on a ghoulish interest in how Manuelo regularly abuses the young girls -- particularly Polish teen Veronica (Alicja Bachleda), and one especially nasty close-up of an Asian boy being forcibly injected in the neck with drugs. The feeling grows that the film has crossed the line from politicized thriller to sordid sensationalism.

Particularly strange, given Jorge's dogged pursuit of his beloved sister -- all the way to New Jersey, no less -- is how Adriana is backgrounded and Veronica foregrounded in the kidnapping sequences.

Given the pic's gaping holes in logic, it hardly flutters an eyebrow that Ray and Jorge are able to worm their way into the operation.

"Trade" undercuts its own worst tendencies for stoking fear and paranoia by letting auds off the hook with at least four happy endings, ranging from a nick-of-time police raid on the sex-trade house to Jorge extracting his pound of flesh from Youchenko.

Shifting from the bucolic mood of his German hit "Summer Storm" to this sleaze marks a bizarre career move for Kreuzpainter, who draws perfunctory performances from his cast, and can do nothing to help Kline convince as a Texas law-and-order conservative.

Pic has the look of a glossy docudrama, with the production ably handling a wide range of locales from Mexico City streets to the Jersey 'burbs.

Camera (Deluxe color), Daniel Gottschalk; editor, Hansjorg Weissbrich; music, Jacobo Lieberman, Leonardo Heiblum; music supervisor, Lynn Fainchtein; production designer, Bernt Capra; art director, James Oberlander; set decorator, Marcia Calosio; costume designer, Carol Oditz; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS), Pawel Wdowczak CQ; sound re-recording mixer, Martin Steyer; supervising sound editor, Dirk W. Jacob; visual effects supervisor, Dominik Trimborn; special effects coordinator, Geoff Martin; visual effects, Arri (Munich); stunt coordinator, Julius LeFlore; line producer (Mexico), Mariano Carranco; assistant director, James M. Freitag; second unit director, LeFlore; casting, Aleta Chapelle (U.S.), Carla Hool (Mexico). Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (Premieres), Jan. 23, 2007. (Also in Santa Barbara Film Festival.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 119 MIN.
(English, Spanish, Russian, Polish dialogue)