Traffic (2000)

Featuring a huge cast of characters, the ambitious and breathtaking Traffic is a tapestry of three separate stories woven together by a common theme: the war on drugs. In Ohio, there's the newly appointed government drug czar (Michael Douglas) who realizes after he's accepted the job that he may have gotten into a no-win situation. Not only that, his teenage daughter (Erika Christensen) is herself quietly developing a nasty addiction problem. In San Diego, a drug kingpin (Steven Bauer) is arrested on information provided by an informant (Miguel Ferrer) who was nabbed by two undercover detectives (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzmán). The kingpin's wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), heretofore ignorant of where her husband's wealth comes from, gets a crash course in the drug business and its nasty side effects. And south of the border, a Mexican cop (Benicio Del Toro) finds himself caught between both his home country and the U.S., as corrupt government officials duke it out with the drug cartel for control of trafficking various drugs back and forth across the border.

Bold in scope, Traffic showcases Steven Soderbergh at the top of his game, directing a peerless ensemble cast in a gritty, multifaceted tale that will captivate you from beginning to end. Utilizing the no-frills techniques of the Dogme 95 school, Soderbergh enhances his hand-held filming with imaginative editing and film-stock manipulation that eerily captures the atmosphere of each location: a washed-out, grainy Mexico; a blue and chilly Ohio; and a sleek, sun-dappled San Diego. But Traffic is more than a film-school exercise. Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (adapting the British TV miniseries Traffik to the U.S.) seamlessly weave the threads of each separate plotline into one solid tale, with the actions of one plot having quiet repercussions on the other two. And if you needed more proof that Soderbergh takes unparalleled care with his actors, practically all the members of this cast turn in their best work ever, the standout being an Oscar-worthy Del Toro as the conflicted moral conscience of the film. While no story is fully resolved in the film, you'll be haunted by these characters days after you've seen the film. By far one of the best movies of 2000. --Mark Englehart Amazon.com essential video

The drug traffic as it really is and from all three perspectives

This movie is intense, complex and firmly grounded in reality. The topic is the drug traffic between the United States and Mexico and it follows three interconnected yet somewhat distinct plotlines.
One is set in suburban, affluent Ohio. Michael Douglas plays a judge who has just been nominated by the President of the United States to be the drug czar. Unknown to him, his sixteen-year-old daughter is a heavy user, regularly attending drug parties with her equally affluent friends. Although her mother knows that she is a user, she does not tell her husband, rationalizing it based on the fact that she also used drugs when she was young. As the Douglas character goes to Washington D. C. and walks the halls of power and then goes out into the field to learn more, the daughter's usage spirals out of control until she ends up prostituting herself.
Another plotline is set in San Diego, California, the incoming transit point for drugs from Mexico. Two local police officers intercept a major shipment and capture the local boss. They manage to turn him and he identifies the local kingpin, a married man who is a pillar in the community.
The third plotline involves two local police officers in Tijuana, Mexico and the drug cartel operating out of that city. The police officers are essentially honest, but begin working with a general of the Mexican army and are sucked into the violent morass that is the drug war between law enforcement and the cartels and also between the cartels themselves.
The brutal honesty of this movie in presenting the drug trade as it is makes it almost at the level of a documentary. Some of the best brutally honest lines are uttered by a DEA agent, a drug trafficker and a young man who is a user. The DEA agent responds to a question about their budget by pointing out that the profits in the drug trade or so high that the DEA budget simply cannot compete on the monetary level. The drug trafficker talks about how they did a statistical regression analysis on the movement of vehicles through the border check and concluded that it was cost effective to simply send the vehicles through the border check. They could accept the occasional loss as a normal cost of doing business. When Michael Douglas is searching the black ghetto for his daughter, the drug-using friend of his daughter forcefully points out how the profits of the trade will always lead to greed winning out over the common good.
Presenting the drug trade from the three sides of supplier, consumer and law enforcement, this movie deserves all the awards it received. It is dynamite on a disk.
August 31, 2008

Buy the DVD Version Instead

I liked this movie. The cast was pretty good and the acting and story were also strong.

The HD DVD sucks royally. The video quality is like a regular DVD. I saw this using an HDMI connection on a 1080 HDTV on which other HD DVDs have looked much better. High definition discs are still new and I expect it will take some time to improve the technology, but this movie is an exact replica of the DVD version.

I bought this at Best Buy, on sale for almost the same price of the regular DVD. And it is definitely worth less than the regular DVD because I could at least watch a DVD on my blu-ray player when they become somewhat affordable in the distant future. This is why I like combo formats better than regular HD DVDs. March 12, 2008

Traffic

Enjoyed this movie , but not a movie I would recommened as a must own
on HD dvd. Looked just as good on dvd. February 13, 2008

An Unpowerful Drama, Unimportant Film

This Movie Started off Good then turned to Trash half way through. Who ever believed Michael Douglas & Catherine Zeta in their roles? After Don Cheadles partner gets killed the film gets boring very fast. Another Over Hyped Movie that shouldn't of won as many awards as it did. December 25, 2007

A Movie As Important As It Is Excellent

While people are currently complaining that we are fighting a foreign war that we have no way of winning, there is in fact a homeland war that is looking just as grim that gets far less media attention. That war is the war on drugs, a war that is examined in all different angles in Steven Soderbergh's exceptionally brilliant "Traffic." "Traffic" covers drugs from beginning to end. While "Crash" and "Babel" may have ultimately brought the craft of hyperlink storytelling to popularity, it was "Traffic" that originally perfected the art of telling a single narrative through different perspectives. We get to see the drugs shipped from Mexico to America, we get to see the drug dealers explain their side of the story, we get to see the congressmen who are attempting to fight drugs, and we finally get to see teenagers who use the drugs themselves.

It's mind boggling to see how much of an impact drugs really have on our culture and on the lives of our fellow man. Soderbergh filmed "Traffic" on a digital camera of things, which gives the movie the look of a home video. The color tones also differ from character to character, demonstrating the mood they're currently in. For example, a cop in Mexico is surrounded in a glow of orange, giving the viewer a feeling of what viewing Mexico for the first time is like. Then we look through the eyes of a teenage girl who is taking drugs, and the world looks hazy and blue, except for light which seems to be brighter then it should be. It's a great stylistic choice, one that benefits the film and makes it look as fresh and inventive today as it did seven years ago. But my goodness, I must be out of my mind.

I haven't even discussed the storyline with you yet, and here I am jumping into the art of the film making. I think this is the first (as my brother calls them) "talking drama" film I actually did this on. And now that I've dipped in with a small analyst of the film making, I want to point out that the acting is excellent. Michael Douglas as Congressman Robert Wakefield particularly stands out as the congressman who goes to congress meetings pitching his plans to enforce the war on drugs, only to run into a conflict when he discovers his daughter Caroline (Erika Christensen) is a drug addict herself. Benicio del Toro may have walked away with the Oscar for his portrayal of the conflicted Mexican cop Javier Rodriguez, but in my eyes Michael Douglas steals this movie right out from all the other actors.

Though I must admit, Don Cheadle comes dangerously close as Montel Gordon, a man who has captured a key witness who's testimony could send a major drug lord to jail for life. His witness singles out the husband of Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who is shocked to discover this secret life her husband has been living (which has supplied the income she never really questioned before), but feels compelled to get involved in the business after her son is threatened by another drug lord. All of these stories could be their own movie, yet "Traffic" roles them all into one very effectively. These storylines contribute to each other so beautifully, that it's like watching a well-made documentary (which, ironically, is also what the film looks like thanks to Soderbergh's digital camera technique).

"Traffic" caused considerable amount of controversy when it was nominated for five Academy Awards. Of the five "Traffic" took home four, including Oscars for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (I guess I should also mention it won for Best Editing, seeing as how sub-par editing could have easily killed this film). The only Oscar it did not win was Best Picture, which went to Ridley Scott's "Gladiator." Yes, I know people tend to accuse the Academy Awards for taking themselves too seriously, but at least this year the Academy members shut their brains off and gave the Best Picture award to one of those brainless action movies average movie goers constantly (and ignorantly) claim are better then Oscar winning films like "Casablanca" and "Titanic."

Even if you LIKED "Gladiator" there's no denying that "Gladiators" film quality is certainly not on the same level as "Traffics" is, and it's certainly not as memorable. Yeah, I know the two films are different, and thus should be exempt from comparison, but seeing as how both films are actually two and a half hours long, I find it interesting when people compliment "Traffic" for feeling "half as long" as it's advertised, where with "Gladiator" I've never heard people comment on the film feeling short then it really is. People who do watch "Traffic" compliment the unique style of filming in the movie, but with "Gladiator" they only seem interested that the movie looked cool. "Traffic" is a classic film that is just as relevant today as it was seven years ago. It's still daring today, it's still important today, and it's still just as fascinating today. Dare I say it, "Traffic" losing Best Picture was the biggest snub since the snubbing of "Raging Bull."

Rating: **** and a half stars September 29, 2007

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