Stolen from Suburbia (2015) User Reviews

The Pink Motel Trap

[wes-connors · 5/10 · 8 September 2015]

In the sunny suburbs of California, young teenagers are routinely rounded-up and sold as sex slaves. Unaware of the problem, wealthy single mom Cynthia Watros (as Katherine) moves from Wisconsin into the danger zone, with her blonde and beautifully-figured 16-year-old daughter Sydney Sweeney (as Emma Hudson). Handsome young men arouse Ms. Sweeney's interests, but mom gets mad when she won't bring them home for closer inspection. Grounded and defiant, Sweeney sneaks out of the house to make time with asthmatically cute Nick Roux (as Adam). Next thing you know, she is "Stolen from the Suburbs" to be sold as a sex slave. Victims' specialist Brooke Nevin (as Anna Fray) and Ms. Watros join forces to search for Sweeney...

"If you want to find Emma, you're going to have to do it yourself," advises Ms. Nevin...

This is a very serious topic, and several of the performers try to give it a serious reading. Unfortunately, this TV movie production treats the subject most predominantly as escapist entertainment, with a touch of repulsion. In that regard, writer/director Alex Wright is successful. You do want to see the fenced-in, tied-up, and bikini-clad young women released before the closing credits. As the young girls' sex-trafficking mistress, tightly-attired Olivia d'Abo (as Melena) drives her unbelievable role over the cliff. The Lifetime TV channel adds a "public service announcement" about the child sex trade, but does not tell you their movie is ludicrous. For the record, the police and FBI are interested and you should tell them before going to any "Pink Motel".

***** Stolen from the Suburbs (2015-08-30) Alex Wright ~ Cynthia Watros, Sydney Sweeney, Brooke Nevin, Olivia d'Abo

Good overview of the neglected part of law enforcement

[jpc-19 · 7/10 · 17 September 2021]

Missing people and children are the lowest priority. I have seen few documentary where a serial killer gets a teen and all the parents are told is that they are a runaway and dont do anything else. The mom is more gung ho then brains but she tries. Why didnt she call the lady that was helping her when she was was in the hotel to meet her. Not lot of common sense but I like her attitude.

More Like 90% Fact Free

[deetdee12 · 3/10 · 6 September 2015]

I'm giving this silliness 3 stars because it IS absolutely hilarious in how far fetched it goes, but past that we have a nearly fact-free plot, much scenery chewing and, yet again, a cautionary tale in the vein of "Go Ask Alice" (which appears to be the source these days for Lifetime Movies).

I absolutely love the bumbling, ineffective cops (and, of course, there's an unseen shady one on the force, who's able to move with magic speed to get info to Evil Boss Lady Madam Olivia D'Abo), who even after mom and faux social worker are witnesses to a freakin' murder, right after a confession of the kidnapping, still fail to do jack about the teens. Best, of course, is how one desperate mommy is able to nearly single handedly take down an international human trafficking ring....or maybe it's the endless references to "THE Syndicate". Cause apparently there's just one, and it cannot be named.

Or is it the figures concocted on the fly? "90% of the girls in juvenile hall are underage prostitutes". Really???? How strange since we routinely see police departments with case workers to help these children break free. To say nothing of the MUCH larger social service organizations that have already existed for decades.

Or maybe it's how "Anna" got the DA to "bargain it down to self defense" (because it was), but still served time for manslaughter. Ummmmm, "self defense" means you're acquitted. You go free. No charges, no time. And a girl younger than the teens in this movie could already tell you that.

Or was it the "Romeo trap", which was clearly taken straight from the bad spy novel concept of a "honey trap", back in the 1950's? Because this was easily the stupidest thing I had ever seen.

The truth is, middle class teens (or in this case, rich ones) are not group kidnapped, because their families WILL come looking for them. Maybe not in the way we've seen here, but certainly private detectives would be rich from tracking them. And this silliness, once again, did nothing to accurately depict how human trafficking in the US really does work.

In reality, most kids are the homeless runaways from bad (or at least perceived to the kid as bad) family lives described early on, because they're the easiest to prey upon. Or girls (and boys) are lured by pimps into "the game" through a slow process of manipulation, faux love, drugging etc.

Or they're young women lured from eastern European countries or developing Asian nations by the promise of employment, etc into foreign countries.

Want a real figure? Of the missing and exploited children (read under 18) who are kidnapped each year the percentage of those taken by a stranger (which this counts as) and not a family member or someone known to them is .02%. Yes, you read that right. The reason the cases we hear about make the news and receive so much coverage is precisely because they're the exception.

I'm not saying this couldn't happen, just it's HIGHLY unlikely. Oh and for the record, I watched this with MY 15 year old daughter. And she howled with laughter.

Why?

[zsiyxmz · 1/10 · 1 January 2021]

This was bad. Bad enough to make me create an account and write my first review on here. The story line was interesting enough to get me to watch it but the scripting and acting is just bad. Some of the lines are just so lazy and cheesy. The facts Anna is giving sound very inaccurate and a lot of the female actresses look too alike. Anna and Katherine look like sisters and the bad lady looks like she could be their cousin. This movie was missing "color" and real emotion. I really don't understand the great reviews on here.

Bad one for the burbs

[videorama-759-859391 · 3/10 · 17 September 2021]

Here we go again, cliche' after cliche' and again I ask myself, "Why do they keep making these HT films. This one, is really done with a Z grade style, whuch I actually admire, if that makes any sense. The disjointed and sloppy film, which has some implausible and such pathetic moments, spells amateur. Again, this is one HT film, you'll be rolling your eyes with. Hot teen, hotter when, almost buff, Sweeny is tricked, fooled by a nice looking youth (cliche) who happens to be an asthmatic, who costs her her freedom, when she's kidnapped, by heartless, sex slavers. Sweeney's girlfriend, also hottie material-aren't they all, also falls prey, coaxed into a relationship by an older guy, not boy (Can you add up the dots so far). Then there's the particular evil burnt out madam (an unrecognizable D'abo) who must of gone to the same place as Daryl Hannah, for face libosuction. Her words are cruel and curt, to her new caged, fresh stable of pretties (cliche). Apart from a familar Drew Carey show face as Sweeney's mother, D'abo is the best actor in this. Suburbs is a particularly nasty, if repellent HT film, especially up towards it's end. A few things are wrong here, like In the photo still scene, where the girls are all brought out, tied to each other (good thinking 99, and an impressive tactic) if for one girl, untied, making a failing attempt to run for it, and guess who.... but back to the things out of place, why would they have one girl, hugely overweight in their stable, and with a few other HT films, it's one question, I've always asked myself. Amateur moment. Also shaming the Pink Motel, in this dredgy fiction, using it as trick pad- would traffickers get away with it, at this iconic motel? A rescuing scene here-cliche. Now the buggest hiccup which really angered me in this potential trash, was the scene with Sweeney's mum, and that young pretty woman advocate, who had a horrofying story, herself as once a victim. What she was saying, when at the computer with the mother (cliche) about the cop's attitudes, and statistics, I couldn't swallow, as I did, other stuff in the movie. And why was D'abo, an ex human trafficking victim herself, so fascinatingly evil, Entertaining and nastily shocking, this movie is. Excellent, well acted, forget it.

Two steps above normal Lifetime woman-in-jeopardy film

[busaff · 10/10 · 3 September 2015]

Another Sunday.

Another Lifetime woman-in-jeopardy film.

But this one is two steps above your average Lifetime thriller.

The hot button subject matter is sex trafficking but writer/director Alex Wright tells a compelling story without falling into exploitation on one side and preaching on the other side.

The primarily female cast is good. Sydney Sweeney, a grizzled veteran ingénue, is compelling as the daughter. Brooke Nevin is suitably driven as the investigator.

Cynthia Watros has done light comedy well (Drew Carey Show), performed melodrama (Lost) as well as any actor could follow that plot, and can now add thriller lead to her list of actress skills. Her character was intense and fearless as the mother.

Olivia d'Abo having sparred with Inspector Goren on many an episode of "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" gives a different, more chilling, level of evil as the bad guy. As close to full-blown Alan Rickman as you are going to get in a Lifetime thriller.

Give us more like this.

****

[edwagreen · 10/10 · 5 September 2015]

Terrific problem dealing with kidnapped girls who becomes victims of sex trafficking. The film really doesn't say much good about police who are depicted as doing little to nothing and often treating the victim as a criminal.

The film shows to the violent extent that the gangs shall use to get their victims to comply.

After being kidnapped, the girls are literally dehumanized and told that they shall never see their families again and are the property of their masters.

The film details one such case where a mother literally took on the gang literally to free her daughter, even if that meant endangering her own life.

Quite intense for Lifetime - Taken in the suburbs

[phd_travel · 9/10 · 27 January 2018]

This is a fast moving Lifetime movie thriller about a teenage girl who gets kidnapped by human traffickers. The police seem unable or unwilling to help effectively so Mom and a woman helping fight human trafficking set about to rescue her.

The climax and rescue are quite good and not too unrealistic.

Olivia d'Abo is unrecognizable as head villain. Cynthia Watros is quite good as Mom.

Worth a watch. Warning for girls obey Mommy and don't get too close to these older guys.

Exciting, if a bit didactic

[mgconlan-1 · 8/10 · 31 August 2015]

I watched another Lifetime "world premiere," with the rather bland title "Stolen from the Suburbs" — leaving me wondering just what might have been stolen from the suburbs that a Lifetime filmmaker (in this case Alex Wright, who both wrote and directed the show) would be interested in depicting. It turned out it wasn't a what, but a who: Emma (Sydney Sweeney), restive 16-year-old daughter of Kate (who oddly isn't listed on the IMDb.com page for the film even though she's playing the leading role!), a single mom who moved from Wisconsin to Los Angeles after her husband died and is so neurotically overprotective she freaks out when Emma tells her she wants to do horrible, perverted things like hang out at shopping malls and date boys. Before the main characters are introduced we get a scene showing the modus operandi of the ring of human traffickers who will ultimately "steal" Emma and her Black friend Courtney (Tetona Jackson) from the suburbs, kidnap them and hold them in what amounts to a boot camp for underage prostitutes of both sexes. Recruiter Johnny (the genuinely hot Mark Famiglietti — as usual with a hot guy in a Lifetime movie, the moment you meet him you know he must be up to no good) approaches a couple of homeless teens, one male and one female, who are hanging out under a lifeguard tower at a beach. He lures them out with promises of food, shelter and a place to clean up at the "Los Angeles Teen Shelter," and claims there will be no police there and no curfew. The two are suspicious but eventually agree to get into Johnny's white van — whereupon two heavy-set thug types, Ivan (Rick McCallum) and Mike (Karl Dunster), grab them and tie them up. Johnny (who's referred to as "Tom" on the film's IMDb.com page — evidently there were some changes before the film was finished) is then told by Malena (also unidentified on IMDb.com but played by a quite good blonde actress who delivers a chilling portrait of matter-of-fact evil, especially later in the film when she explains to Kate that as far as she's concerned the kidnapped children are just merchandise and all she cares about is the money) that homeless kids are already such damaged goods that they are of little use to her, and he needs to find her nice suburban teens. Johnny protests that such kids will be more difficult to recruit, but he accepts the marching orders and turns up at the mall to which Emma and Courtney have sneaked.

"Stolen from the Suburbs" suffers from didacticism — a more subtle filmmaker than Alex Wright might have been able to create a story in which mom's very overprotectiveness lures Emma to the dark side and shown a longer seduction process before she realizes what her "boyfriend" really wanted from her (in real life the pimps who do this sort of recruiting can spend weeks getting their victims to the point where they're so convinced the pimps "love" them that they're willing to turn tricks to show their own affection), but instead he seems to be saying, "Girls, when your mother tells you not to date guys she hasn't met, just follow her orders, or you'll end up a sex slave!" It also suffers from some pretty gaping plot holes and the usual loose ends of sloppy thriller writers. There's even a scene early on in which Kate, who works for a building contractor, tears down a missing-child poster from a tree near the latest project her boss is developing — he's told her to because advertising that children go missing from the neighborhood would be bad business for the developer — and the volunteer who runs the agency that put up the poster upbraids her and asks, "What if it was your daughter?" But for all its messiness, "Stolen from the Suburbs" is actually quite a good thriller; Wright manages to sustain the suspense until the end, and we're genuinely in doubt as to how it's going to turn out and whether mom will save her daughter in time. "Stolen from the Suburbs" is gripping filmmaking and well worth watching, and if Alex Wright can give himself a cleaner and more coherent script next time (or get someone else to write one for him), his future films should also be worthwhile entertainment.

Saving Innocence

[lavatch · 8/10 · 29 June 2021]

"Stolen From the Suburbs" is a harrowing saga of human trafficking in a graphic portrayal of the horrors of abduction and the desperate search of a mother for her kidnapped daughter.

The widow Katherine Hudson has recently moved with young Emma from Wisconsin to Los Angeles. Emma is feisty and eager to spend time with young Adam, a boy she met through her bestie Courtney Halliday. It turns out, however, that Adam is working closely with Courtney's presumed beau Johnny with the goal of abducting the two girls for a human trafficking ring. Emma and Courtney fall headlong into the "Romeo trap." The ring is run by a nefarious creature named Malena.

The film had a relentless intensity with the desperation registered on the face of Katherine. One of the most interesting characters was Anna Fray, who runs the service "Saving Innocence," which is dedicated to located human trafficking victims. In a riveting monologue, Anna describes to Katherine her personal experience of being abducted and spending four years in prison due to the manslaughter that led to her escape.

While not all of the frenetic action at the end was credible, the filmmakers were successful in conveying the urgency of locating the victims immediately after abduction. Otherwise, they appear to vanish into thin air, the playthings of malevolent figures in like the evil Malena.