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It is hard to argue that child sex trafficking is a horrible thing. Most of us tend to avoid thinking about it, which brings a lot of harm in the long run. However, Wendy Wilkins, an Australian filmmaker, deserves credit for this. Her thriller film captures the audience’s attention and is fast-paced, yet does not lose sight of what it attempts to portray. Plus, it is really refreshing to see that she has been able to put forth an important issue without being exploitative.
Driving through a desert in a stunning red Mustang, protagonist Maddy (Shannon Elizabeth) is pulled over by a female police officer. The officer tells Maddy to be careful as she breaks down near the US/Mexico border. The area surrounding is filled with coyotes, aka, sex traffickers. While Maddy attempts to be subservient by offering a cigarette to the officer, the officer begins to pull up her registration and Maddy’s story gets told “hours earlier.” Maddy had just gotten out of a bad relationship and was soon captured in a trailer with five young women. All of their faces were filled with tears, all their hands tied. As a man attempts to pull a rape on her, Maddy shoots him from her boot. The camper is carrying several underaged girls, trembling and bound and a teenager tells them to take the older girl and get help from a woman called Adele (Wendy Wilkins).
Let’s be honest here Death on the Border is not without its dull moments The film ingeniously manages the evolution of Maddy from a miserable loner small-town cop with an unfaithful husband and a traumatic miscarriage to a woman crusading against the sexual exploitation of women. From Eric Roberts as that bad cop to Danny Trejos’ sympathetic priest (a refreshing departure from his typical typecast, where his tough guy persona is solely reserved for villains) the performances across the board are solid. And fair is fair, the disarrayed timeline is a clever approach to the problem of how to show an ordinary woman transforming into an avenging machine. Still, it is somewhat uneasy to speak of such abrupt shifts as ideal for the material: Sure, one could argue that the grabs the viewer’s attention with a brilliant opening sequence, but there are other non-linear shifts to consider.
Even with having a very admirable message, which is that human trafficking is real and that the overwhelming majority of its victims are women and children, the violence in the film is, as the subject matter suggests, perfectly suitable but is bound to be distasteful to a section of viewers. Death on the Border, quite paradoxically finds itself stuck in a betwixt and between place, where it is likely to alienate some viewers due to the disturbing subject matter, while they will also disappoint others, particularly the more serious ones, who seem to look forward to a more nuanced approach. The subjugation of women and children is a profoundly sad theme, one that is curiously bereft of joy and contentment.
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