Film Reviews: Angels in the Dust, Hannah Takes the Stairs, Trade

THE RAPE OF EUROPA The Rape of Europa is old-school documentary filmmaking: the coolly cultured voice-over (courtesy of Joan Allen) imparting reams of facts; an endless stream of deeply informed talking heads; rare old photos and newsreels that fill the screen with imagery that is both thrillingly breathtaking and horrifying. It’s a History Channel or PBS special that’s leaped the fence from the boob tube onto the big screen. And it’s riveting. Tracking the tortuous paths of art masterpieces that were stolen from both private Jewish homes and assorted national museums of Europe during WWII, and then funneled into the private collections and storehouses of Hitler and his Nazi minions, Rape of Europa is a history lesson dressed as a measured thriller. Directors Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen and Nicole Newnham canvass seven countries and travel back and forth between past and present to bring forth information that fleshes out familiar history notes, such as pointing out that frustrated art student Hitler mapped his conquest of Europe, in part, based on the art he wanted to lay claim to. Simultaneously, the trio’s portrayal of the issues around recovered art (battles between descendants of those who originally owned the art and the museums that now have possession; the attempts by historians and conservators to restore retrieved pieces) is a timely metaphor for the ways that the past lives so thornily in the present. (Royal; Playhouse 7; Town Center 5) (Ernest Hardy)

RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION Why should you see a third installment of what has been, up until now, a tedious portfolio of international film-financing strategies disguised as a video-game adaptation? Let me count the ways: One, Milla Jovovich plays some sort of spaghetti-Western wraith who emerges from an underground bunker in a miniskirt/gunslinger ensemble to whoop ass on the living dead. Two, Milla Jovovich plays some sort of spaghetti-Western wraith who emerges from an underground bunker in a miniskirt/gunslinger ensemble to whoop ass on the living dead. Three — well, you get the picture. And so does director Russell Mulcahy, who uses all the flashy moves he honed on Duran Duran and Billy Joel videos to munch guts, pop eyes, and scatter brain matter to the far corners of the wide screen. This is wall-to-wall mayhem that dashes from one stylish, splattery, nonsensical set piece to the next, while the star attacks her silly role with the carnivorous brio of an ocelot clawing a side of ham. As such, it’s the first of the agonizing Resident Evil movies that could remotely be considered fun. I eagerly await a sequel in which Milla Jovovich’s clone army encounters a battalion of genetically modified Asia Argentos, and life as we know it ends in a maelstrom of bee-stung lips, crazy eyes and runway hair pulling. Until then, this’ll do. (Citywide) (Jim Ridley)

TRADE Based on a 2004 New York Times Magazine article about the sex-trafficking business, and starring a very straight-faced Kevin Kline, Trade should be a gritty, multifaceted, high-minded story about the price and politics of human slavery. Instead, it’s pure exploitation — the kind of movie after which you need a long, hot shower. German director Marco Kreuzpaintner’s movie looks like Traffic and Syriana — clearly his role models — but is little more than our generation’s version of 1979’s Hardcore. It’s set mostly in Mexico, where girls are snatched from streets and airports to become unwilling sex slaves — among them Veronica (Alicja Bachleda-Curus), who is lured to Mexico from Poland and is set to go up for auction in New Jersey, and Adriana (Paulina Gaitan), a teenager knocked off her bike and snatched in the broad-daylight streets of Mexico City. From Mexico to Jersey, we see plenty of pit stops at which these women (and, in one ghastly sequence, a young boy) are abused. Kline is the cop looking for his own grown daughter. Kreuzpaintner has managed to take an exhaustive and troubling investigative story and render it into a tawdry little thriller. Among its myriad problems is the fact that Trade doesn’t say anything about sex trafficking other than “Wow, it’s horrible.” (Selected theaters) (Robert Wilonsky)

GO YOUR MOMMY KILLS ANIMALS In this information-dense documentary, filmmaker Curt Johnson gives representatives from various animal-rights and animal-welfare groups (there’s a difference) a chance to state their case. Saving the Fidos and Fluffys of the world from abandonment or medical experimentation, it turns out, is a complicated, anger-filled enterprise. Actually, the animal-welfare folks would say that the animal-rights people aren’t interested in saving Fido at all, with many accusing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) of killing more dogs than it saves. PETA, which once put out a comic book for kids titled Your Mommy Kills Animals, declined to participate in this film, as did the Humane Society of the United States, another mega-money organization with few friends in this crowd. And it is a crowd — Johnson’s film has almost too much testimony, the most incendiary of which is centered around the so-called SHAC-7. These young American members of an international group that uses the combative tactics of anti-abortionists to vilify those who’re doing business with a major products-testing company were recently labeled terrorists by the FBI and put on trial. That one can’t quite decide if these charming men are heroes or villains is a mark of Johnson’s calm, even approach to an issue seemingly fueled by emotions run amok. (Grande 4-Plex) (Chuck Wilson)