<i>The Whistleblower</i>: Know Your Enemy

In Cowboys and Aliens, the enemies are horror fantasy monsters with a nod to James Cameron's classic creations down to their gooey mitts. In The Whistleblower, they can be government officials, policemen, friends and relations, evil in human form.

Based on the real life story of Nebraska cop Kathy Bolkovac, who gets a job with an international peacekeeping force in post-war Bosnia, the new movie is a thriller in which some members of the UN and U.S. State Department collude with contractors in the lucrative trade of human trafficking. Just doing her job, Bolkovac, played by Rachel Weisz in the film, simply can't stop the violence against women committed by the men who are there to keep them safe.

On Wednesday night after a BAFTA screening, the Museum of the Moving Image's Chief Curator David Schwartz interviewed Weisz on this role, and her career in such movies as The Mummy, Agora and The Constant Gardener. For The Whistleblower, this glamorous actress plays against type, a working class woman with a hefty gait, talking in perfect American. Weisz said she relished the idea of playing a character much like Meryl Streep's in Silkwood, Julia Roberts' in Erin Brockovich. Resplendent in red, accessorized with platform pumps, the British-born brunette explained her preparation: it's all about the boots.

But this was also the night of the movie's premiere, and Weisz and husband Daniel Craig, star of Cowboys and Aliens, attended the rooftop celebration at the James Hotel. Director Larysa Kondracki said it took 7 years to finance the film. Now a resident of Holland, Kathy Bolkovac, a blond, was there too. When she went public revealing this startling information about the brutal trafficking of girls in Eastern Europe, did that make a difference? No, no one was punished. It's a grim truth: In this flagging world economy here is an industry that continues to flourish.

This post also appears on Gossip Central.