TRAFFIC: MEXICANS WINCE AT HOLLYWOOD'S SEPIA PORTRAIT

TIJUANA, MEXICO - Jorge Castanada is a Tijuana cop, not a film critic.

So he knows something about life on the streets of this border town. But if
you ask him about the film "Traffic," which opened here this week, he gives
it two thumbs up. "It was realistic, it showed the dark side of the drug
trade we can't deny exists here. It also takes up the reality of drug use"
in the United States.

But many Mexicans are less-than enamored with this Oscar-nominated flick -
and several other recent films. After years of bemoaning their low profile
in Hollywood, Mexicans are finding that center stage is, well, not all fun
and Zorro.

More than anything, it's "Traffic" director Steven Soderbergh's use of a
grainy sepia tone to film Mexico scenes that unsettles Mexicans. "The way
the movie was filmed, it says, 'Everything in the United States is
technicolor, it's neat and beautiful, while Mexico is sepia, old, and
shadowy," says Dulce Maria Sauri, president of Mexico's Institutional
Revolutionary Party. "From the opening scene, Tijuana was nothing but small
dirty backrooms, and Mexico a den of corruption," Ms. Sauri continues. "I
just kept thinking, this is the image of Mexico that is going around the
world."

Mr. Castenada's girlfriend echoes that sentiment as they emerge from a
cineplex at a mall in Tijuana. "I don't know if I like the idea of the best
movie of the year presenting this negative vision of Tijuana and Mexico to
the world," says Rocio Chavez.

Ms. Chavez will have to wait until Sunday to see if the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences considers "Traffic" the year's best picture.

But it's not just "Traffic" that Mexicans find distasteful. Also set in
Mexico this year are "Way of the Gun," "Double Take," and "The Mexican,"
which associate the country with themes ranging from kidnappings and
money-laundering to bumbling, small-time corruption.

With Hispanics now constituting America's largest minority, and Hollywood
cultivating that market, Hispanic actors like Salma Hayek, Benicio del
Toro, and Jennifer Lopez are in hot demand.

The Traffic plot relates an unsung Tijuana policeman's role in bringing
down a Mexican general who is working with one Mexican drug cartel to
destroy another. Though names are changed, the story draws from the
shocking revelation in 1997 that Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, Mexico's
equivalent of the White House anti-drug czar, was on the payroll of the
Juarez drug cartel run by Amado Carrillo Fuentes. As part of his
clandestine work, General Gutierrez was taking tough action against the
Tijuana cartel of the Arellano Felix brothers - to help the Juarez cartel
expand westward.