Traded

• Directed by Timothy Woodward Jr.
• June 10, 2016

A father must save his daughter who has been sold into prostitution and encounters an old enemy.

Traded was a selection that popped up on Tubi. A good Western is hard to find especially on that particular free streaming service yet every now and then something that surprises me shows up. Given the source and clearly limited budget my expectations were low. Yet by the end I felt I found a diamond in the rough. It is not perfect but based on the quality it should be better known. It hit all the right notes and not only was it well written and well-acted it was expertly directed with very good production values that did a great deal with very little.

Set in the Old West, Traded is basically a story of sex trafficking though it segways into other things in the last third. I wouldn’t call this a revisionist Western though. It’s more of a drama set in the Old West. It’s somber and a bit downbeat filled with hardened characters, but these are not so damaged that you have no idea how they function. They live difficult lives which have hardened them.

Clay Travis (Michael Paré) must find his daughter Lily (Brittany Elizabeth Williams) who has been sold into sex trafficking under the pretense of becoming a Harvey Girl. That makes sense. What comes later relies on a heavy amount of coincidence. Lily has fallen into the hands of Lew Crawford (Tom Sizemore)-also calling himself ‘Lavoie’ here or there-who is carrying a grudge because Clay shot Crawford’s brother dead a few years ago in a gunfight

I can easily buy that Clay is a former gunfighter that has started a new life. I have trouble buying that in the vastness of the West it was possible for Crawford to easily come across Lily and figure out who her dad was and then formulating a plan for revenge. There is even the implication it was all some elaborate plot by Crawford. Whatever it is, Traded then becomes about a final showdown between Clay and Crawford with Lily being the sign of victory. It is like they could not figure out how to end the original story so instead used something easy to conclude. Not a rough switch but a questionable one.

In a very common cliché, Clay is a loving yet stern father but also a man with a dark past who has put it all behind him and started a family. The thing of him running across a lot of people from his past considering population density and the inability to travel easily at the time stretches credibility. One is related to the man Clay shot (making them a relative of Crawford) as well as former lover/current prostitute Nell Craft (Natalia Cigliuti).

Kris Kristofferson as Billy is in here to add some Western genre cred to this as a random bartender whose motivations shift depending on the needs of the plot. At first the character is difficult with Clay to the point of impeding his search for Lily and then he decides to help him. While his stated reasons for helping Clay make sense, why he was initially difficult do not pass the sniff test.

There is some very good acting in this. Delivery, stance, and expression communicate as much as any snippet of dialogue does. Michael Paré does very little overtly but is still able to communicate a hardened man that you do not wish to mess with. Sizemore was especially gifted at playing sleazeballs that could be nice to you but were dangerous once you crossed them and brings that same skill to Crawford.

Motivations are grounded even if some of the moments seem a little out there. Clay is not unnecessarily fatherly or unnecessarily harsh when we first are introduced to the character. He has a good bond with his son and is stern with his daughter as most fathers with daughters who want to go and possibly hang out with some boys might be. He’s in a good marriage which is probably the biggest surprise. Every film marriage these days has some friction.

Problems begin when his son gets bitten by a rattlesnake and dies. It causes the daughter to be rebellious and the mother (Constance Brenneman) to be overly protective to the point of smothering making the daughter more rebellious. In fact mom even spirals into some mild mental illness. 

There are some moments of real darkness this is this, but not to the point you’re thinking they’re living in something this side of the apocalypse. Clay is descending into a seedy world and encountering some outright dangerous individuals. At around 90 minutes they pack a lot into this but each character you meet is developed enough in order for what happens with them to actually matter to you. This engages in some good economic storytelling. The story is compelling and gritty with a great musical score.

Traded was a very pleasant discovery. Maybe not perfect but what I wish more Westerns could be. Worth finding and watching.