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‘City of Dreams’ Review: Contrived Drama About Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery Squanders Top-Notch Cast
in 'City of Dreams,' producer Mohit Ramchandani debuts as a writer-director with an account of a Mexican teen forced to manufacture clothing.
Last year’s “Sound of Freedom” made a splash at the box-office appealing to conspiracy theorists and religious groups and convincing audiences that watching it was a morally righteous action taken against those perpetuating the horrors of human trafficking. Cinematographers Alejandro Chávez and Trevor Roach shoot the underworld where the victims work and live with limited light sources creating a drab, oppressive environment that highlight the subhuman conditions they are subjected to. Ramchandani couldn’t more clearly state that the film’s artistic merits are secondary to the “impact.” There’s no denying the seriousness of the subject matter at hand, as well as the need to address it wholistically, but when message overpowers all else in storytelling, a strange breed of overtly ideological moviemaking emerges: expensive public service announcements masquerading as art.
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