Traffik | Film Review

In the pantheon of isolation thrillers, where our heroes hole up in a remote destination fending off their enemies, one truth always remains: there must be a modicum of a chance for salvation. The locale needs to be distant enough for the audience to buy their unanswered pleas for help, yet offering some semblance of an opportunity for escape. The end goal of these films also rarely changes: flee. Get away. It is so prevalent that each and every audience member is yelling it at the screen, “RUN LIKE HELL!” The question Traffik ultimately posits though, is what if that flight ultimately affects strangers? What if running saves our character’s lives, but dooms so many others in the process? Could you live with yourself?

Traffik follows Brea (Paula Patton), a journalist recently sidelined due to a distinct lack of immersion into her reporting. The timing could not be better when her boyfriend, John (Omar Epps), whisks her away for a lush romantic getaway, tucked in the solace of the wilderness.

Happenstance meets tragedy as Brea and John cross paths with a young woman seemingly pleading for help, and a conspicuous biker gang looking for trouble. After an intense encounter at a local gas station, the couple arrive at the picturesque retreat where a weekend of indulging awaits. An ill-timed visit from mutual friends (Laz Alonso and Roselyn Sanchez) proceeds a horrific development: Brea has found the desperate woman’s phone in her bag. As fate would have it, that same woman has just arrived demanding the phone back, a device directly linked to a brutal criminal enterprise. And she is not alone.

Traffik sets the board as any number of thrillers have, finding our heroes trapped in a solitary locale with a group of sadistic outlaws bent on their demise. What sets this film apart are the very intense stakes at play for our characters amid the backdrop of true-life events. As tensions escalate, a tragic everyday occurrence emerges from beneath the fiction, and Traffik takes an enthralling, yet decidedly pointed look at this modern horror: sex trafficking.

In a cast ripe with actors we know, Paula Patton rises to the occasion of leading the roster with a character whose demand for the truth thrusts her into the jaws of the abyss, knowingly risking lives for a greater purpose. It would be easy to root against Brea, as her initial refusals to turn over the phone would seemingly determine their fates, until you witness the scope of her pursuit. Brea immediately grasps the true reality of the situation: if they trade a smart phone for their own lives, this will certainly sentence dozens of others to a life of sexual slavery. Once Brea commits to her decision, Traffik morphs into a race-against-time, where no one character is ever safe. And it is here that Patton shines, as her natural bubbly charm morphs into a wild quest for survival, evoking the film’s tagline “Refuse to be a victim” in every frame as she screams, fights, and claws her way out of a pit of potential servitude and despair.

Directing from his own script, Deon Taylor takes a bit too long with the setup – the architecture and sweeping vistas surrounding this gorgeous home retreat are breathtaking, but we didn’t really need to spend more time in the pool than the actual characters do – and a few of the characters border on stereotypes. But once that doorbell rings, Taylor ratchets up the tension, keeping the audience teetering on pins and needles for the duration.

With a timely backdrop and steadfast cast, Traffik is pulse-pounding entertainment with an underlying message. Thankfully, it is one which leaves us cinematically fulfilled and intellectually curious about the current state of sex trafficking on the planet. And any film that can entertain an audience while dropping a hint of subliminal education in this age of bombastic overindulgence, well, that is more than worthy of a trip to the cinema.