'TRAFFIC' FOLLOWS VERY WINDING ROAD

It has been a long time since an American movie attempted to come to grips
with a sweeping social problem. In his new film, "Traffic," director Steven
Soderbergh offers one of the most comprehensive pictures of the drug trade
ever seen and does it with incredible cinematic verve.

Soderbergh's sprawling, observant drama explores the nooks and crannies of
a business that has reached industrial proportions. "Traffic" opens a door
on the suburban homes of coked-up rich kids. It shows us the silk-lined
lifestyle drug money can buy in La Jolla, Calif., and wanders dusty streets
in Tijuana.

Traffic has many stories and no center - and that's what's required, a
drama that describes a condition in which symptoms far outnumber any
possible cure.

Taking a cue from a 1989 British miniseries called "Traffik," which focused
on the heroin trade, Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan cut across
social boundaries with intersecting stories that reveal the shocking scope
of America's drug problem - from users to dealers to cops who struggle to
put a finger in a dike that can't be plugged.

Soderbergh's movie is marked by appropriate amounts of contradiction, and
no one comes away clean. A top law enforcement official has his nose rubbed
in reality, for example. About midway through the film, Judge Robert
Wakefield (Michael Douglas), newly appointed national drug czar, discovers
that his daughter has become addicted to crack. This father-daughter story
may be a bit heavy-handed, but it's quibbling to criticize a movie with
this much ambition, so much of it realized.

A fair measure of the movie's success accrues thanks to its cast.

Leading the charge is Benicio Del Toro, who played a marblemouthed thug in
"The Usual Suspects." Here, Del Toro portrays a Tijuana detective of
divided loyalties, a cop trying to function in an atmosphere so rife with
corruption it can't be sorted out.

Like Christopher Walken at his best, Del Toro has a way of eluding
comprehension. You're never sure what he's going to do, and his line
readings draw us close to the edge.

Douglas tempers ambition with undercurrents of uncertainty in the role of a
government official in a no-win situation. He can be especially touching in
scenes with 18-year-old Erika Christensen, who plays his daughter, a
private school student who slides into drug abuse.

The rest of the cast shouldn't be shortchanged. Catherine Zeta-Jones does
her best work yet as the pregnant wife of a wealthy drug dealer (Steven
Bauer) who's arrested when an associate rats on him. She begins the movie
as an upscale California housewife with the kind of country-club privilege
new money buys. She winds up giving chilling, lethal orders as she tries to
salvage her husband's crumbling empire.

Miguel Ferrer, often hired to play hard-boiled characters, scores a
bull's-eye as a drug dealer forced to cooperate with federal agents after
he's caught.

Special note should be made of Tomas Milian's performance as Gen. Salazar,
a Mexican law enforcement officer who may be working both sides of the
fence. It's grandly theatrical and odd, a leering portrait of treachery.

A variety of well-placed smaller performances add to the pungent flavor.
Dennis Quaid appears as a lawyer and ally of the captured drug dealer;
Jacob Vargas portrays Del Toro's partner. You'll also catch glimpses of
Albert Finney, James Brolin and Salma Hayek, the latter two effective in
tiny roles.

The grunts in the drug war are represented by Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman,
both convincing as street-level Drug Enforcement Administration cops.

Soderbergh, who shot the movie himself, varies the color palette in ways
that help him shift from locations. He moves us through Cincinnati's
upscale suburbs, Washington's power corridors, California's plush homes and
across the U.S.-Mexican border.

Had "Traffic" been made in the '70s, a period when many directors were
deeply interested in the fabric of American life, it might have hit harder.
But I think Soderbergh has found the right blend of gritty entertainment
and attenuation.

Soderbergh did impressive work in "Erin Brockovich." He surpasses it in
"Traffic," a movie that bites off a large hunk of subject and chews it to
near perfection.

The movie doesn't deliver a knock-out blow, perhaps because it can't resist
saying what we've already been shown. Yet Soderbergh makes one thing clear:
This hopelessly tangled and brutally corrupt world keeps turning, dropping
casualties on every side of the fence.

(Rated R; 145 minutes)