Doc Watch: Peril

LAST TRAIN HOME (2009) (B) - This fascinating documentary follows one family as they take part several times in the annual new-year's migration of urban workers returning to China's rural areas. Filmed a decade ago by Lixin Fan -- who takes a fly-on-the-wall approach without narration -- we settle in with couple Changhua and Suqin, their two children, and the grandmother who raises the kids while the parents work in a clothing factory.

The sheer volume of people trying to make the same trip -- during last decade's great economic expansion in China -- creates harrowing scenarios of nightmare attempts to score a train reservation back home. Eventually, older daughter Qin drops out of school and joins the parents in the workforce. The final year's trek, by Qin and her parents, finally exposes raw nerves, provoking an outburst back home that would make the Kardashians blanch. It is that scene, around the one-hour mark, that makes for compelling viewing, just as we've settled into the cadence of the family dynamics and their annual migration.

I AM JANE DOE (C) - Filmmaker Mary Mazzio tries too hard to tell the story of victims of sex trafficking, and she ends up taking a story that tells itself and filling it with distractions. Randomly, Jessica Chastain narrates. We meet several victims now trying to get on with their lives. But Mazzio spends an inordinate amount of time talking to politicians (like John McCain and Claire McCaskill) who are seeking to plug the loophole in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which lets websites off the hook for the content supplied by third parties.

The villain here is Backpage.com, a corporate relation to the venerated Village Voice, which looked the other way in the face of blatant evidence that teenage girls were being sexually exploited through classified ads. The chronicle of a court case against Backpage drags on too long, offering little intrigue. Mazzio continuously cuts to footage of innocent girls -- completely unrelated to the actual sex trafficking -- frolicking in different settings, tugging at our heartstrings. Meantime, the victims' stories get chopped up and lose their emotional impact. This mix of outrage and empowerment just falls flat.