USA Today by Claudia Puig

Trade unflinchingly sheds light on a heinous crime. Yes, it's tough to sit through. But don't let that keep you away.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold

Though it's ostensibly a thriller, Trade constantly works against the conventions of its genre in a rather audacious way -- finding, for instance, surprising moments of humanity in even the most monstrous of its villains.

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Crust

Trade works fairly well as a thriller ticking down to Adriana's auction. It's less assured when it strains for some buddy picture chemistry between Ramos and Kline. Though both actors are fine, with Ramos' performance being reminiscent of some of Diego Luna's English-language roles, the attempts at humor to ease the tension between Jorge and Ray and some of the speechifying are out of tune with the rest of the film.

Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman

As a movie, Trade is so-so, but as an exposé of how the new globalized industry of sex trafficking really works, it's a disquieting, eye-opening bulletin.

TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh

The story's incredible coincidences, lazy cynicism and easy ironies recast a real-life horror story as easy-to-dismiss melodrama, complete with sequential "happy" endings.

Miami Herald by Connie Ogle

Trade's wake-up call needs to be heeded, but its missteps detract from its devastating message.

Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea

Trade comes off like TV-movie sensationalism, sidetracked by distracting backstories and hard-to-swallow plot twists.

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

An eagerly prurient dip into the sex-trafficking trough, Trade teeters between earnest exposé and salacious melodrama. Minus the film’s near-visible weight of conscience, success in the second category would have been virtually guaranteed.

ReelViews by James Berardinelli

With a movie of this sort, the viewer expects to undergo something grueling and disturbing. Trade's inability to deliver that sort of visceral experience makes it unworthy of anyone's hard-earned dollars.

New York Post by Kyle Smith

But improbable situations, heavy reliance on coincidence and an improbable climax nearly tip the film into TV-movie territory.

The A.V. Club by Nathan Rabin

Trade is a pulpy Hollywood-style melodrama disguised as a harrowing message movie about Important Social Issues. It labors under the delusion that it's this year's revelatory, eye-opening Maria Full Of Grace, when it's little more than a B-movie with an overwrought conscience.

Boston Globe by Wesley Morris

Human trafficking is an awful societal issue, and Trade happens to be an awful movie about human trafficking.

Village Voice

It's pure exploitation--the kind of movie after which you need a long, hot shower. German director Marco Kreuzpaintner's movie looks like "Traffic" and "Syriana"--clearly his role models--but is little more than our generation's version of 1979's "Hardcore."

The Hollywood Reporter

Trade is an earnest attempt to dramatize the network of Internet sex "tunnels." Unfortunately, the film's horrific and important subject matter is distilled into a lackluster lump of generic buddy-movie/road-picture components.

Variety by Robert Koehler

Little more than a slipshod, trashy, sometimes exploitative thriller.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Anything that holds our interest can be entertaining, in a way, but the movie seems to have an unwholesome determination to show us the victims being terrified and threatened. When I left the screening, I just didn't feel right.