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People are voting emotionally.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I would have given it a higher rating but the closing statement completely blew up the meaning of the entire story and causes of the trafficking. The closing comments stated that the government continues to do business with private contractors as though they were the primary problem. Did they forget about all the government and quasi-government organizations including the UN that were not just involved but were complicit in the scandal? In fact Bolkovac worked for a private organization. Her work would have never come forward if she worked for the government and in fact she would have never even been on the scene. I suppose if she had been paid out of some government coffer the misdeeds would never have happened in the first place or would have been more excusable.This type of guilt by association is quite common by press, entertainment and government types. Can't they ever get at the real root causes rather than demonizing and the injection of their socialist bombast?

The Whistleblower is a tough but necessary film to sit through. It concerns the UN back in 90's Serbia/Bosnia, a time and place characterized by extreme human savagery and unimaginable cruelty. Now during this brutal conflict, hundreds of young, displaced refugee girls were caught up in the chaos of it all and trapped in sex slavery, which was rampant at the time, creating another tragic blemish in history made worse by the fact that the UN knew well and good what was going on and did little to nothing to stop it. It's heartbreaking material no doubt, but there's a light in the darkness in the form of UN ambassador Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) who can't stand by and watch the corruption continue, confronting her superiors which creates further friction. The thing is, in a time of such wanton crisis, a lot of elements in the equation get written off as collateral damage or acceptable losses tearfully tallied up in barely disguised apathy in service of some greater good. Kathryn's UN boss Bill Hynes (Liam Cunningham in a nice extended cameo) has this reprehensible, all too common outlook and won't do anything to help the imprisoned girls. For a lot of people in Ivory towers of detachment, the plight of less fortunate people may not seem like a cause to get riled up over. Not Kathryn. She won't stand for it, and launches a personal crusade to expose those in power who aid and allow the sex trade to survive, and bring them down. With help from two sympathetic colleagues (David Strathairn and Vanessa Redrave) she navigates the tricky, war torn personal and bureaucratic terrains to try and liberate girls who've barely begun life and have already found themselves in hell. Weisz has an innate compassion in any role we see her in, making her the perfect woman to play this character who risks all she has to save complete strangers from a horrific fate. It should be noted that there are intense scenes of violent sexual abuse here that are super tough to watch, but necessary to impart that importance of the girl's struggle to the audience. It's nice to see true stories about a single person who stands up for many others in the face of pure evil.. gives me hope for our upside down world. PS: watch for a brief cameo from Benedict Cumberbatch.

Rachel Weisz stars as "The Whistleblower" in this 2010 film also starring Vanessa Redgrave, Monica Belluci, David Strathairn, and Roxana Condurache.This is based on a true story about Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska policewoman who accepts a job as U.N. peacemaker in Bosnia. Almost immediately the powers that be are impressed with her work, and she is given a promotion.However, their adoration of her quickly ends when she learns that the human trafficking going on in the country involves contractors and diplomats with diplomatic immunity. She has no idea who to trust.Absolutely horrible scenes showing how these sex slaves are forced to live and how they are punished if they talk.The acting is very good, with Rachel Weisz carrying the burden, giving an emotional, strong performance. I saw her with her husband, Daniel Craig, on Broadway in a play, Betrayed. She is stunning, absolutely gorgeous. As you will see in this, she doesn't depend on her looks when she's acting.Recommended if you have a strong stomach. This is an important issue that doesn't get enough attention, and apparently a lot of the so-called "good guys" are involved in it.Blink and you miss him, but Benedict Cumberbatch plays an American soldier with a few lines of dialogue.

This was a bit of a tough go, as the movie itself isn't spectacular and the subject matter is uncompromising and at times not easy to watch. The story is important though and the cast is fantastic with Rachel Weisz giving her all to the role of Kathy Bolkovac, an American police officer who travels to Bosnia on a UN peacekeeping mission and uncovers evidence that her colleagues (and many higher ups) are running a human trafficking ring.You sure don't come away feeling very good about humanity after watching this. I did find the movie pretty jumpy as a whole with Kathy's story, being told in little snippets of events so that it jumps around a fair bit especially in the beginning Weisz is fantastic in her transformation from public servant to crusader, risking everything and getting shut down by the very people she (we) should be able to trust. We also follow two young girls Ukrainian girls through their hell.There are several big names attached to this in small, dare I say wasted roles; Benedict Cumberbatch appears in two short scenes, on screen just long enough for you to think; that guy looks familiar, realize who it is, admire his American accent and then he's never seen again. Vanessa Redgrave was also impressive here. 10/18/15