 | Traffic Thea Desrochers - Thursday, March 08, 2001
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Stephen Gaghan
Stars: Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Luis Guzman, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Steven Bauer, Benjamin Bratt, James Brolin, Erika Christensen, Clifton Collins Jr., Miguel Ferrer, Albert Finney, Topher Grace, Amy Irving, Tomas Milian, D.W. Moffett, Marisol Padilla Sanchez, Peter Riegert, Jacob Vargas
MPAA Rating: R (pervasive drug content, strong language, violence and some sexuality)
Reviewed by: Thea Desrochers
Our Rating: * * * *
Run time: 147 minutes
In Traffic, director Steven Soderbergh and writer Stephen Gaghan take the shadowy world of drug trafficking, shatter it into pieces and then put them back together in a variety of heightened reality. No single piece can tell the story and pieces often contradict one another but together, they create a picture absorbing in its complexity and absurdity. A detached, documentary-like tone might keep audiences at arm's length from the emotional core of the movie.
The film begins in Baja California, where a Mexican lawman (Benicio Del Toro) and his partner and friend (Jacob Vargas) struggle to find any ground between corruption and intimidation by the Mexican cartels. Intercepting a drug shipment by truck, the two suddenly make the acquaintance of the country's top drug fighter, an army general (Tomas Milian) determined to destroy one cartel in particular. Meanwhile, in the United States, an Ohio state supreme court justice (Douglas) is nominated by the president as his anti-drug czar. He needs a crash course on the problem as evidenced by his ignorance of drug experimentation by his daughter (Erika Christensen), a situation not helped any by the quiet strain in his marriage to his wife (Amy Irving). In San Diego, two DEA agents (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman), acting on a tip from south of the border, bust a midlevel dealer (Miguel Ferrer). This leads to the arrest of a wealthy businessman (Steven Bauer) in front of his horrified, pregnant wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones).
The family attorney (Dennis Quaid) quickly acquaints the wife with the facts of her privileged life and what actually supports that lifestyle while her husband's ``associates'' make threats against their young son.
Douglas' crash course in drugs becomes the viewer's crash course. The filmmakers refuse to pass judgment on their characters but rather view the drug trade as a business, albeit an illicit one, where people both benefit from and are exploited by that trade.
But it's hard to understand why an American judge can be so naive about the infiltration of drugs into every aspect of American life. Douglas compounds the problem by delivering a remote performance, seemingly uninterested in even his own life and family. He eventually comes around to rescue his daughter, but not before much damage has been done.
The film contains little if anything new about a subject that occupies newspaper front pages almost daily. But what Traffic does that is new is view the drug trade in all its ramifications social, political, psychological and physical from supply side to demand and including those who would sanction the supply routes. | |