Rating summary
| Movie |  | 2.5 |
| Video |  | 4.0 |
| Audio | | 4.0 |
| Extras |  | 1.5 |
| Overall | | 2.5 |
Traded Blu-ray Movie Review
The Searcher.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 10, 2016
In what amounts to a 19th century take on some of the underlying plot mechanics of Hardcore, Traded deals with a distraught father named Clay Travis (Michael Paré) who sets out to
find
his errant daughter who has run away from home and who has subsequently gotten involved in prostitution (the timeframe is obviously a bit too
early
for pornographic films). Traded sports a formulaic but intermittently involving story, and it has some good turns in character parts by the
likes
of Tom Sizemore and Kris Kristofferson, but this is an effort that seems to want to combine so-called “mumblecore” proclivities with more
Peckinpah-
esque moments of extreme violence. It’s an odd combination, to say the least, and Traded suffers from a lurching pace and lack of a clear
through line.
Clay’s quest takes him to the “big city” of Dodge, where he encounters a motley crew of grizzled “Western types”, including a guy named Ty Stover
(Trace Adkins) with whom he (of course) has a bit of history. Clay ends up teaming with a bartender named Billy (Kris Kristofferson) and ends up
dealing
with some unseemly types who are involved in what amounts to sexual slavery for a coterie of young women.
Traded has an
appropriately
dusty ambience, but dramatically it’s a bit of a slog, a slog interrupted regularly by spectacular bouts of gunfire and maimed bodies.
Traded Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality
Traded is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is a very nice looking presentation for
the most part, one that exploits the kind of burnt sienna and brownish ambience of the American west, while supporting good levels of fine detail,
especially in close-ups. Director Timothy Woodward, Jr. and cinematographer Pablo Diez like to catch glints of sunlight bouncing off of various items, often
choosing backlighting gambits that can tend to deprive the image of some fine detail. The palette looks natural, if subdued, and there are no issues with
image instability or compression anomalies.
Traded Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality
Traded sports a workmanlike DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one which offers requisite surround activity in elements like shootouts or even
horses galloping across the plain. Samuel Joseph Smythe's score also resides comfortably in the surround channels and helps to support several key
sequences. Dialogue is also rendered cleanly and with excellent prioritization on this problem free track.
Traded Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras
- Five Minutes to Dodge: The Making of Traded (1080p; 8:02)
- Deleted Scenes (1080p; 5:32)
Traded Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation
Traded has some compelling elements going for it, even if it's ultimately too rote to ever work up much energy. Genre enthusiasts may find
enough here to warrant a purchase, and for those folks, technical merits are generally strong.
