'Traffik': A romantic getaway turns into a battle for survival

Human trafficking has been an issue that people are trying to fight off lately. This illegal trade that is modern-day slavery is thriving so much that it is second only to arms trade. In the past few years, many celebrities have voiced support for campaigns against trafficking.

Traffik is a movie about Brea (Paula Patton), a journalist with the Sacramento Post, who has been pursuing a major story on corruption within her city, but finds that a rival journalist has published the same story at her newspaper.

She feels that her colleague did not do a good job on the story. Brea has a heated war of words with her editor and is asked to take some time off work and re-evaluate her approach to her career.

Brea’s boyfriend, John (Omar Epps), together with their friends Darren (Laz Alonso) and Malia (Roselyn Sanchez) take Brea out to celebrate her birthday. It is then that she opens up to them that she may not even be having a job, and Darren ruins John’s surprise by telling her that John is taking her out to a vocational getaway in the California mountains.

This is where the situation gets tricky. Reminiscent of the film Get Out, in some ways, the getaway home is situated in a small town where the couple stands out for not being white.

Like a sore thumb, they are easy to pick out and John gets into a fight with a biker crew that feels like he shouldn’t be in the area when they stop at a gas station to get some supplies.

FIGHT FOR THEIR LIVES

While using the bathroom, Brea comes across a strange girl who looks like she wants to tell her something but they are interrupted by an aggressive man from the biker crew who’s with her.

The couple’s romantic getaway now becomes a fight for their lives as the crew believes that the couple has something that would let their secret trade activity get out.

The movie has a very interesting introductory scene and soundtrack that goes with it. The scene that follows this then definitely gets you glued and yearning to find out what happens next.

I feel the first half of the movie is definitely the best part of the movie because the writing of it was spot on. The dialogues are good, the scenes flow wonderfully and the story line is good.

However, the second half of it starts feeling like they really wanted to do a movie on human trafficking but they didn’t take enough time working on.

The scenes are downright cringe-worthy, and you start to feel almost embarrassed that actors of a high calibre would put themselves in this situation. Bad writing or just poorly executed acting, I believe the actors committed so much to this worthy cause – Patton is even the producer – whatever the cost to their reputations.

The progression of the movie goes from zero to 100 too quickly, and there isn’t enough build-up to the climax. Then it fizzles out and tries to pick up again. The soundtracks were definitely amazing and on point, to me.

When was the last time we had any news on Paula Patton before the announcement of the works and release of Traffik? After having been in a few movies back in 2016, she fell off the radar.

But she looks nothing like your conventional 42-year-old woman. You could check out the movie to but it’s not exactly the stuff of Oscars.