HOLLYWOOD GETS IT RIGHT IN 'TRAFFIC'

Not too long ago, I stood on the banks of the Rio Grande with U.S.
Border Patrolman Steve Evans. He had just come off undercover duty in
Ciudad Juarez, where he and Mexican police busted a smuggling ring. I
asked how he knew if he could trust his Mexican counterparts.

``It takes a long time to build that trust,'' he said, ``but the truth
is, you never know for sure. Corruption is rampant on the other side.''

I didn't stay long enough on the border to meet any of his Mexican
partners. They would have been ordinary cops who earned a few hundred
dollars a month trying to capture millionaire drug traffickers. They
had to be in the most complex predicament of all, resisting the
temptation of bribery to do what's right and stay alive.

Last weekend, almost eight years later, I saw one version of those
Mexican cops in the hit movie ``Traffic.'' Hey, Hollywood sometimes
gets closer to the truth than journalism.

A Look At War On Drugs

``Traffic'' is a big, sweeping movie that captures the look, feel and
failure of America's war on drugs. It follows the drugs, the money and
the rhetoric from Tijuana to San Diego, Cincinnati, Washington, D.C.,
Mexico City and back again. ``Traffic'' has five Oscar nominations and
more stars than a galaxy.

And yet the most suspenseful moments and deepest insights come from
the segment featuring Benicio Del Toro as a Tijuana detective on the
verge of heroism or corruption. You can never tell.

He gets involved with Mexican drug cartels, the Mexican Army and the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. He's always tiptoeing toward an
objective only he can see through his sunglasses, an objective that's
symbolically revealed at the end of the movie.

This character is real, unapologetically flawed and puro Mexicano. In
one scene, the isolated detective gives sensitive information to DEA
agents, who tell him he's doing the right thing.

``I feel like a traitor,'' he says.

Run Of The Mill

The other two plots are good, but nothing we haven't seen before on
prime-time TV cop shows.

We have one segment featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones as the pampered,
naive housewife of a wealthy businessman who launders money for the
drug cartels. She drives a fancy SUV and lunches with her
wool-and-pearls friends in La Jolla. She's simply shocked, shocked
when her husband is arrested.

Puh-leeze.

The other segment features Michael Douglas as a new, national drug
czar whose own daughter gets hooked on crack cocaine. Douglas' czar is
a little too heroic for me. I liked the daughter's part better. She's
smart, bored and has no social, political or religious causes, nothing
greater than herself to believe in. I know a few teenagers like that.

One thing ``Traffic'' does well is show how pervasive drug use and
addiction are in U.S. society, and how that demand fuels the supply
that corrupts its way through Mexico. Not only do we see affluent
teenagers smoking crack, we see chain-smoking American cops,
inner-city drug dealers, wine-guzzling socialites, cocktail-happy
politicians and tragic figures spilling their guts at Alcoholics
Anonymous meetings.

As well as ``Traffic'' defines the problem, the movie delivers its
conclusion a bit too symbolically. So let me try: No matter how much
money we spend ($45 million at last count), current anti-drug policies
don't work. So let's try drug decriminalization, treatment on demand,
and generous economic and law-enforcement aid to Mexico.

``Traffic'' is a must-see movie, especially for Americans of the
``Just say no'' persuasion.