SCORES ON ALL COUNTS

TRAFFIC

Rating: MA.

Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Don
Cheadle.

Critic's warning: Language, violence, sex scenes, drug references.

Critic's rating: 10 out of 10.

Living up to expectations, this award-winning, much Oscar-nominated
movie is in a league of its own.

IF there were any justice in the world, Traffic would win Best Picture
and Director at this month's Academy Awards.

This high profile but very non-production line drama about five groups
of people caught up in the modern drug trade scores nine out of 10 for
entertainment value. It scores the remainder for being so darn smart
about it.

Traffic doesn't just ambitiously try to paint the big picture on drugs,
to join the dots between impoverished Mexican border smugglers and
coke-snorting North American rich kids.

It's also a film which simply is all things to all people. You want
brooding street realism and a searing Brando-esque performance? Check
out Del Toro's struggling Mexican cop who has to decide whether to make
his own stand on drugs.

You want hard-core surveillance action? Crack jokes with undercover
drug-agent toughies Cheadle and Luis Guzman as they chase a crucial
crime witness (Miguel Ferrer).

You want classic personal drama? Follow smug wife Zeta-Jones as she
suddenly discovers her handsome rich husband (Steven Bauer) and
silky-smooth lawyer (Dennis Quaid) aren't the straight-arrow "importers"
they claim to be. Or watch as well-to-do dad Michael Douglas painfully
learns that declaring war on drugs is declaring war on your own family
members.

Traffic is directed by Steven Soderbergh who's competing against himself
at the Oscars this year. He's also been nominated for his terrific Erin
Brockovich starring sure-thing Best Actress winner Julia Roberts.

You can see the similarity between the two films but Traffic is much
more emotionally reined-in, more documentary-like. This lean, mean
approach, which uses hand-held cameras and natural lighting, seems to
have been deliberately chosen to keep schmalz at a minimum.

Traffic is unlike any other film about drugs you've ever seen. Yes,
occasionally the film teeters on the brink of "message" moments. But,
impressively, it always pulls back and keeps moving. Most viewers won't
even notice the 140 minutes' running time.

The cast is superb throughout. Del Toro must win Best Supporting Actor
for a performance so natural you feel you're sweating with this
$600-a-month cop on morally dangerous Mexican streets.

Zeta-Jones is also excellent as the pregnant wife forced to make a
decision about her husband's business. The actor plays much of this just
in reaction shots, communicating a world of emotion in silent close-ups.

Her real-life husband Michael Douglas (they don't appear on screen
together) is also spot-on as the self-assured career judge shocked to
the core by what happens to his daughter.

Trafficdoes have flaws. The daughter subplot is very well handled but
still a bit too familiar. The film's genuine cinematic style and
intercutting between characters' stories will wow film buffs but does
distance the emotion.

This isn't a typical American movie which aims to pulp your heart with
the expected cliches. The Mexican scenes, for example, are subtitled;
these are shot by Soderbergh himself under the name Peter Andrews. The
bleached-yellow, heat-struck images feel like an entire foreign language
movie in themselves.

In complete contrast are the punchy street chases of the US cops which
feel straight out of television series NYPD Blue.

The story is very dense in a way; literature buffs especially will
appreciate the clever cross-cutting between characters. You don't have
to knock yourself out concentrating, though. It helps to know that the
sniper in the window has been hired by a certain threatened Mexican drug
cartel, but it's not crucial.

All top-rated films need to be seen twice - but we don't want to be
cavalier with your time and money. On the first viewing, it was notable
that Del Toro, king of the mumblers, had strangled some crucial
dialogue. For your interest, the dream that Del Toro talks about while
in the pool is to have lights in Mexican parks so the kids can play
baseball at night and stay out of trouble.

But what you really want to know is: how good is Traffic? So good that
it's in a league of its own.