DRUGS AND GREED EVERYONE WHO CAN BE CORRUPTED WILL BE.

Traffic: Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Written by Stephen Gaghan, based on
"Traffik," created by Simon Moore for Channel 4 Television, U. K. Produced
by Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz, Laura Bickford. Executive producers:
Richard Solomon, Mike Newell, Cameron Jones, Graham King and Andreas Klein.
Cinematographer, Peter Andrews (aka Steven Soderbergh). Production design,
Philip Messina. Art direction, Keith P. Cunningham. Set decorator, Kristen
Toscano Messina. Editor, Stephen Mirrione. Costumes, Louise Frogley. Music,
Cliff Martinez. Starring Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro,
Luis Guzman, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Steven Bauer and Erika
Christensen. With Clifton Collins Jr., Miguel Ferrer, Topher Grace, Amy
Irving, Tomas Millian, Marisol Padilla Sanchez and Jacob Vargas. USA Films
Release, 2000. R. 147 minutes.

Mexican policeman Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) attempts to
straighten out his patrol partner and childhood friend, Manolo (Jacob Vargas).

. It's hard to imagine any other working American filmmaker who could have
made this film but Steven Soderbergh. By now Soderbergh has shown that he
can work in any genre he chooses -- he calls this one a policier -- and
treat any subject he selects with the technical skill and creative art
expected only from a very few film masters.

Shot by the director himself, Traffic is more than the sum of its parts.
The four stories that make up the film's narrative move from an
orange-yellow dominated Tiajuana desert outback to the cool blue seats of
power in Washington, D.C., and from the mansion of a San Diego drug lord to
the filthy torture chamber of a ruthless Mexican general. The drug cartels
generate unimaginable wealth, and it's not only those addicted to cocaine
and heroin who are its victims. Greed blooms in the presence of so much
money, and only a few among us are incorruptible.

Traffic hits home with the immediacy of your morning headlines, yet it's
also the oldest story ever told. For all of its recorded history, the human
race has discovered ways to alter reality -- from the fermentation of
grains to the curing of tobacco to today's mass-market, legal
pharmacopoeia. Substances as relatively benign as coffee and as medically
helpful as morphine take their places on a continuum that includes rave
designer drugs such as Ecstasy as well as crack cocaine, heroin and
methamphetamine.

Soderbergh illuminates the range of chemical dependencies of the film's
characters. There's the Scotch that new drug czar Robert Wakefield (Michael
Douglas) drinks to unwind and ameliorate his domestic boredom; the beer
Mexican policeman Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) quaffs in San Diego
when he's ensnaring a notorious, dangerous assassin; the two glasses of red
wine pregnant Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones) sips with her lunching
girlfriends just before her husband, Carlos (Steven Bauer), gets hauled in
for being a drug kingpin; the free-based cocaine that gives great pleasure
to teenager Caroline Wakefield (Erika Christensen) the first time she uses.

Changing nature's bounty into highly addictive substances wasn't figured
out just yesterday, but the scale of today's drug trafficking and the
ubiquity of substances to abuse simply boggles the mind. Worst of all,
everybody knows that the interdiction programs the U.S. spends an ocean of
money on aren't working.

Soderbergh's film is powerful and wholly unsentimental. Unlike Darren
Aronofsky's brutal Requiem for a Dream, this film is not bleak and
hopeless. The difference, I think, is that Aronofsky is fascinated by the
evil of drug abuse, so that is what he explores. But Soderbergh shows that
ordinary people caught in the drug web can find a way out: one character
decides not to serve the drug cartel; another, an addict, stops using
through group therapy. Traffic says it's not people who are to be blamed
for drugs, but the utterly corrupt system itself.

Soderbergh's direction is flawless. Stephen Gaghan's screenplay smoothly
integrates the different stories without obvious artifice. Del Toro's
performance is the best of the year. Douglas is also very good, and
Christensen is pure gold. Zeta-Jones shows us the sobering face of
desperation. As undercover DEA agents, Don Cheadle is all purpose and
resolve, while his partner, the fabulous Luis Guzman, is dedication itself.

The best film of the year (so far), Traffic is now playing at Cinemark 17
and Cinema World 8.