‘City of Dreams’ Film Review: True-Life Subject As Exploitation Film

Writer-director Mohit Ramchandani’s City of Dreams walks a less-than fine line between an urgent call for action and an exploitation picture. Sometimes the line becomes too blurred, as many moments go all in for cheap thriller tactics and melodrama. As powerful as this film’s message regarding human trafficking may be, Ramchandani’s screenplay doesn’t dig deep enough. The film has some good moments and solid performances, but the uneven tonal beats within the script too-often cheapen the impact.

Comparisons to the 2023 Conservative dog-whistle that was Alejandro Monteverde’s Sound of Freedom are inevitable. The subject matter is basically the same and both share Executive Producers, but Ramchandani seems less interested in the politics and more dedicated to the effects human slavery has on its victims, even if he goes more for nail-biting suspense. Most important is how the director doesn’t use his film as a tool to blame only one political party, as Montiverde did with his project.

City of Dreams focuses on Jésus (Ari Lopez), a young Mexican boy who is promised a spot in a soccer training camp, but is trafficked to America and sold into a sweatshop. The house is filthy and has no windows. The symbolism of small rays of light beaming through the cracks is a bit obvious, but gives the film a nice visual sheen, courtesy of cinematographers Alejandro Chávez and Trevor Roach. It is in this isolated hell where Jésus will become prisoner and slave, along with other children of varying ages. Jésus lives every moment in terror as he and the others desperately try to achieve the daily quotas set by their “jefe” (Alfredo Castro), and his volatile henchman, Cesar (Andrés Delgado). These are violent men who rule with fear. At first, the two characters seem simplistic in their design, but the screenplay gives both men a scene that gives insight into what may have made them into the monsters they have become.

While working, Jésus becomes enamored with Elena (Renata Vaca), another victim of trafficking. The film teases something sweet between them (and their moments together have a softer tone), but the film decides to go for the exploitation when Elena is sold into sex slavery. Ample time is not given to the character, nor is she well-defined. Elena exists only to make the audience gasp when her fate comes to pass.

Jason Patric is a police officer who discovers the house, but cannot get inside to investigate, as Cesar has filed a brutality complaint after Patric’s cop gives the thug a beatdown for not letting him inside. The film sets Patric’s character as the potential hero, but keeps giving him roadblocks (more misconduct allegations) that eventually find him on desk duty. After building him up to the audience, the movie decides it is done with him and he vanishes from the story. While the character’s street knowledge tells him something is wrong inside that house, the cop becomes a victim of a far-reaching conspiracy that stops him from investigating.

A pressing issue is how the powerful can halt the hand of justice with nothing but a phone call. Even when it comes to human trafficking and the child sex trade, money wields its power for those willing to look the other way. Ramchandani could have opened interesting doors by examining how American money fuels devious stratagems that keep trafficking profitable and justice at bay. An exploration of the paradigm shift for law enforcement and the court system

(and how conditions some companies create can become fertile ground for the exploitation of all immigrants) would have given the film a stronger dramatic punch. Again, the deeper core of such an important issue loses out.

With this film, Mohit Ramchandani certainly had a mission. Unfortunately, his mission is to use human trafficking as a backdrop for a standard thriller. While the story is crafted from true events, the urgency of such an important subject becomes secondary to the director’s desire for suspense. In trying to shock his audience, the filmmaker inserts too many scenes of children getting beaten. These moments go on and on and are filmed in slow motion, almost reveling in the moment. This is a tactic that pushes the film over the edge of cinematic exploitation.

In an effort to become socially and politically relevant, the film ends with a montage of politicians from both sides of the aisle pleading for stronger international laws and news clips of the businesses who have been busted using child labor. The sloppy manner in which this is thrown together seems like an afterthought. While there is the occasional moment that hints at something profound, Ramchandani doesn’t seem interested in investigating beyond what we already understand, “Human trafficking, bad.”

City of Dreams is a sporadically involving, but ultimately flawed call to arms.