'TRAFFIC'

A Movie On Drugs: Soderbergh Digs Deep And Delivers 'Traffic' Worth
Sitting Through

"Traffic" may be the first Steven Soderbergh film in which the plot is as
important as the people.

The movie tackles a subject no less weighty or complex than America's war
on drugs, declaring it largely futile in the process. It interweaves three
separate storylines, each with its own trailing threads.

This allows director Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan ("Rules of
Engagement") to detail various aspects of the drug trade in Mexico and the
United States and how they intersect in living rooms across America, where
even smart, privileged American teen-agers smoke, snort and shoot up --
often under the noses of the parents you would think are most likely to
realize it.

In other words, the film makes us ruminate upon its intricate depiction of
the distribution pipeline by accounting for its human toll. Even the
gritty, documentary-style portions of the film retain a personal touch by
making the cops, crooks and users into individuals with strong
personalities and credible motives.

The movie's agenda sometimes results in characters giving speeches
disguised as dialogue, and one key plot component -- an all-too-respectable
father searching for his drug-addicted daughter in an all-too-squalid part
of town -- conjures up memories of similar scenes in movies like "Hardcore"
that now verge on cliche.

But these quibbles don't detract from the intelligence and power of
"Traffic," which has been adapted from a 1989 British miniseries written by
Simon Moore.

Michael Douglas is the biggest name in the ensemble cast. He plays Robert
Wakefield, chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court and the country's newly
appointed anti-drug czar. He's tough, he's smart and he has no idea what
he's getting into -- or that his teen-age daughter, Caroline (Erika
Christensen), a National Merit finalist, is becoming hooked on dope by her
friends in their affluent Cincinnati suburb.

But the movie starts with Benicio Del Toro as Mexican cop Javier Rodriguez.
He and his partner are recruited by Mexico's equivalent to Wakefield,
General Salazar (Tomas Millan), who knows exactly what he's doing.

The third story line follows two undercover DEA agents played by Don
Cheadle and Luis Guzman. Their work has resulted in the trial of Carlos
Ayala (Steven Bauer), whose arrest as a drug baron comes as a shock to his
pregnant wife, Helena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who finds herself in danger
in her upscale San Diego neighborhood.

For the record, newlyweds Douglas and Zeta-Jones do not appear in any
scenes together.

Soderbergh, a master at digging beneath the surface of his films, usually
does so by manipulating the time frame to give different perspectives to
the same story. Here, he does the opposite -- following three separate
stories that are occurring simultaneously and merging them into a single focus.

The Douglas storyline is perhaps the most predictable, leading to
Wakefield's desperate walk on his missing daughter's wild side but also to
the movie's alternative answer to the drug curse.

Del Toro has been racking up the acting kudos, and for good reason. He
paints Rodriguez as a man familiar with petty corruption who must learn to
keep his balance on a dangerous ride through a swamp of moral ambiguity.

Cheadle is the straight man to Guzman's impulsive joker, but perhaps the
most interesting arc in this plot line belongs to Zeta-Jones, left to fend
for herself against her husband's enemies and managing better than we might
have imagined.

Other familiar faces include Amy Irving as Mrs. Wakefield, Dennis Quaid as
Helena's lawyer, Miguel Ferrer as an endangered pawn in the government's
case against Carlos Ayala and Topher Grace of "That '70s Show" as the
preppie druggie who turns Caroline Wakefield on.

Together, the actors make their characters into something more than
pedestrians at the mercy of oncoming drug traffic.