and still does. Its an interesting story with real life characters that are more interesting than fiction. However, the shaky cam, out of focus shots, hyper closeups, and quick cuts made the film too painful to make it anywhere close to half way through the movie. It was a movie that I really wanted to see, but its never going to happen. Its a real shame with the budget of this film that they couldn't afford a tripod, or steady cam rig. Or even a grown up editor. If I walk away from a movie nauseous and with a headache I can't reward the creators with a high score. Viewers aren't spending money on bigger 4k screens hoping for blurry and shaky camera-work. This story, and the real persons involved deserved a better effort than this.

I would have given it a higher rating but the closing statement completely blew up the meaning of the entire story and causes of the trafficking. The closing comments stated that the government continues to do business with private contractors as though they were the primary problem. Did they forget about all the government and quasi-government organizations including the UN that were not just involved but were complicit in the scandal? In fact Bolkovac worked for a private organization. Her work would have never come forward if she worked for the government and in fact she would have never even been on the scene. I suppose if she had been paid out of some government coffer the misdeeds would never have happened in the first place or would have been more excusable.This type of guilt by association is quite common by press, entertainment and government types. Can't they ever get at the real root causes rather than demonizing and the injection of their socialist bombast?

This is one of the reviews where the movie making takes a backseat. The review basically is about the issue that the movie covers. To be honest, that is what I am going to do as well. While I watched this movie, I was extremely engrossed. The acting and direction did not really matter much, though I would say they were quite good. It was a perfectly woven story which start at a relatively gentle pace, then picks up in speed and continues with the tempo till the end. It conveys the idea that normal looking people can indulge in horrible acts when there is lack of accountability or fear of the law catching up. And after they have started, they get so sucked into the system, that they can easily act as professional criminals. The movie talks about a US police women who goes to US as a peace- keeping monitor. She finds herself in the middle of gross corruption, prejudice, plight of women and outright criminality. She gets sucked into the gender affairs office after she manages to get justice for a woman who had been badly abused by her husband. At the gender affairs office she comes across cases of trafficking of numerous east European women and later discovers that UN personnel and her colleagues are themselves involved. They are involved not just in exploitation but actual trafficking itself. The story moves around how she is threatened to shut up and how she fights back and the fate of some of the trafficked girls. It is a moving performance. But as I mentioned earlier, the review is more about the issues that the movie raises and not necessarily about the acting and direction. And the worst part is that the movie is based on a true story.

Kathy Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) is a twice-married cop in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her ex-husband is moving to Georgia with her daughter. She can't get a transfer. Then she's given an opportunity to a 6 month job for $100k. It's an UN security job in post-war Bosnia. She finds the country in ruins, and the international force to police the peace to be a hodgepodge group. It's a wild lawless world where the rules are murky and they are told to monitor rather than investigate. She successful wins the first case of domestic violence in Bosnia and Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave) picks her to head the Gender Affairs Office in the IPTF. She dives into this world of private contractors, corrupted criminal world, sex trafficking, multinational diplomacy, and bureaucratic cover-up.Rachel Weisz does good work in this compelling story. The only problem is the long running time. At almost 2 hours, it is about 20 minutes too long. There are too many overly long scenes where the tension isn't up to snuff. Sometimes it feels like filmmaker Larysa Kondracki is more concerned with making a point rather than making a tense thriller. The other small problem is the inspired by true story moniker. I do wish that the movie is about the real story. If they won't do that, then it's better to just make a completely fictional story and drop the moniker.