Let's be realistic.

hyped garbage

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Basically, this is a tedious morality play. It starts out well but the religious theme totally overwhelms what could have been a good movie. To be fair, this film is an unfortunately heavy-handed and sappy appeal for an otherwise very worthy cause. Kudos to Jim Parrack who out-acted everybody else, although David Koechner does deserve some credit before his character was forced to get too gag-me-with-a-spoon preachy. I should have bailed out on this one.

Excellent job by the Smallbone brothers! This is not Hollywood blockbuster production by any means, but it sends a message, and it does it well. It's a very inspiring, moving, and powerful low budget indie film that delivered more than I expected. If you have not seen this, you need to! It's a well deserved 8/10 from me!

A good awareness film, but struggled to narrate what it wanted to say in a standard way like any average films does. It was about forced prostitution, especially for poor immigrants. It was the story of Antonia and Maria, the illegal Mexican immigrants, but told from James, a truck driver who recently lost his wife. Now the life worth living is for his daughter who has been taken by the childcare. But one day on his job, while delivering a cargo, he comes to know his commitment is wrong. At first not realising the depth of the issue, later he decides to fight for it, but it was too late, yet he never gives up.Films like 'Taken', 'Trade', 'Eden', all are very similar to this. Each tells undigestable tales, which mostly based on the real like this one. Thematically, this film can be praised, but not all quite well in the screenplay. The first is, it was slightly religiously motivated. Yeah, I like morals from the religious aspect, especially when it is used to fight for good, not to promote the belief. I appreciate, it did not lean on that overall, except the characters designed that way. On the other hand, the performances were not up to laudable, especially the emotions parts lacked the feeling.Since it was not entirely based on the real, but parts of various true events, the screenplay should have filled better with other contents. The opening and the final acts were good, though the middle section lacked the pace and the story event. So now you know what this film is about, and I think it is worth a watch, mainly for the message it carries. Interesting, this film turned into a book, which seems a good idea as it is more like that sort of portrayal than for a cinematic.6/10

I had no idea what I was getting into with this movie. Throughout the whole film I kept getting the feeling that it was really trying hard to make the good guy look cool. To make doing the right thing seem like the right thing to do. I really like that. The bad guys weren't overly glorified or vilified either. I don't think they went too far, and it doesn't smack of the in your face over the top cheese-fest that other movies dealing with the subject usually have. I know the story well from made-for-TV movies though never was it so professionally shot or well acted. There are only a few gripes i have about the movie, and they are personal irks that I can understand probably were taken into consideration and decided against by the creators. 1,) I really wish they had used the word RAPE at any point in the film. Everything else was so honest and boldfaced that it seems a shame to try and sugar coat it with euphemisms and allusions. 2,) The end seems really rushed and cut short. There are a lot of questions left unanswered, but I believe it is because they needed to get their message out after the climax instead of a concise denouement. 3,) They could have done a better job with working in the daughter and her relationship and importance to James. As it is it seems a bit contrived and little fake. None of those are great detriments, and the message is important too. The movie was legitimately entertaining and kept my attention from very early on. I'm planning on watching it again with certain friends and recommending it as well. I'm glad I saw it.