SNARLING ABOUT 'TRAFFIC'

Drug Film's View Of Mexico May Cause Distress Yet Bring Success

MEXICO CITY ­ The acid test for the wildly popular American drug film
Traffic starts Friday in Mexico.

It will open amid great buzz on 250 screens throughout the country, the
largest opening here in recent memory for any movie, domestic or foreign.

And no wonder. Mexico, with its chronic drug-trafficking problem, is the
movie's deeply flawed central character.

The portrayal of the Mexican border city of Tijuana, and what drug experts
fear are systemically corrupt police and military units, has drawn
brickbats from Mexicans who say the movie exaggerates and mischaracterizes
their country.

Many of them are so upset that they're expected to fill movie houses like
never before.

Demand to see the movie even before it officially opened was great, said
Jaime Alcalde, representative for Artecinema, the movie's Mexico
distributor. At three preview showings around Mexico City, theaters were
full, and exit interviews provided a mixed bag of criticism and praise for
director Steven Soderberg's latest film.

"The only thing I can say is that it shows the extremes to which people can
be demonized, without real research into what really happened," said Teresa
Gutierrez Rebollo, daughter of jailed Mexican general and former anti-drug
czar Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo.

Accompanied by her father's attorney, Ms. Gutierrez Rebollo said after the
screening that a pivotal Mexican character in the film, a corrupt army
general, bore "no relation" to her imprisoned father.

Behind the scenes, American officials such as U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey
Davidow have seen preview copies. Even Mexican President Vicente Fox is
said to have gotten a sneak peek early last week. Aides would not disclose
his reaction.

On-screen Distortions

"Many Mexicans will be upset by the way Mexico comes off in the movie,"
said Ana Maria Salazar, a former Pentagon drug policy official who was
raised in Mexico. "It's a good movie. But if it's reality the movie's
makers wanted, they missed the mark on some key points."

Ms. Salazar, a visiting professor at the Autonomous Technical Institute of
Mexico, pointed out dramatizations in Traffic that go beyond reality, such
as the film's premise that all Mexican officials are linked to drug dealers.

"It shows some things that have happened," Federal Judicial Police
Commander Xavier Villegas told the Mexico City daily newspaper Reforma
after a preview. "But we must make clear that this is made in the United
States, and only [the Mexicans] are the bad guys."

Even Tijuana is distorted. In the movie, the Mexican border city is a
sepia-toned, tumble-down mess stuck in a scruffy desert. The Mexican border
scenes reportedly were shot in Nogales, across the Arizona border.

In reality, healthy chunks of Tijuana are thoroughly modern and
cosmopolitan, and the city sits on the Pacific Coast amid the same mild
temperatures enjoyed by its American twin city, San Diego. That city, by
contrast, is shot in full, cool color.

"I was offended by those colors because the United States looks so real,
and Mexico looks so dirty and dark," said Martha Jimenez, a 25-year-old
bureaucrat, as she emerged from a preview in Mexico City's upscale Polanco
neighborhood. "But in the final analysis, I suspect, that darkness is a
reality for us."

'So Real That It's Scary'

Even its harshest critics in Mexico give Traffic high marks not only for
accurately portraying widespread problems in their country, but for not
sparing the United States for its insatiable drug appetite and a moral
ambiguity that looms large behind the drug-war rhetoric.

"It's so real that it's scary," said Maria de Jesus Ortega, a 28-year-old
veterinarian at the same preview. "It reflects what young people and
families here and [in the United States] live through."

This weekend, Traffic is expected to top the $100 million mark in the
United States and Canada, the traditional blockbuster barrier and an
amazing accomplishment for this type of film. It also is up for five Oscars.

In Mexico, it was lauded by preview audiences for its frankness and
originality, even if its multiple story lines closely followed a British
television miniseries of the same name, only set in England, Germany and
Pakistan.

The movie avoided copycat status by folding in true stories from the
U.S.-Mexico struggle against traffickers, such as the Gutierrez
Rebollo-like character and the easy co-opting of Mexican law enforcement by
dueling drug cartels.

Looking Inside

In the movie, the fictional Obregon brothers stand in for the real
Arrellano-Felix siblings who run the Tijuana Cartel.

And like in real life, the Juarez Cartel's leader is presumed dead after
botched plastic surgery. In the movie, the Juarez chief reappears with
nasty facial scars and Mexican actress Salma Hayek by his side, in a
seamless cameo as a perky mob moll.

The authentic Juarez leader, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, died in a failed
attempt to alter his looks, according to Mexican officials and U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration agents who saw the body and the autopsy reports.

Traffic's greatest success in Mexico may be seizing an unprecedented wave
of self-examination on a national scale.

Until a few years ago, Mexicans were shy of openly ridiculing their
institutions. But then came Vicente Fox, whose open-collar campaign for
president succeeded in booting out a long-ruling political party that
routinely drubbed out media critics.

A Changed Mexico

Mr. Fox surged in pre-election polls just as television comics began poking
fun at presidents and ministers. Then, in 2000, the satire Herrod's Law
defied the government and opened to rave reviews and the biggest commercial
opening for a Mexican movie.

The hope for a changed Mexico came across to some viewers in the movie's
final scene when a Mexican police officer with ties to the corrupt Mexican
general becomes a DEA informant. His payoff from the Americans: lights for
a kids' baseball field.

"It showed us some hope for Mexico; that the Mexican cop was playing the
game for something good," said Axel Burgueti, an Argentine actor and singer
who now lives in Mexico. "He could have used his position for something
else, but he chose something for the kids.

"That's a good message."