AT THE MOVIES: TRAFFIC CHARGED WITH TENSION

The Movie Is Powerful Precisely Because It Does Not
Preach

U.S. laws against illegal drugs function as a price-support system for
the criminal drug industry. They do not stop drugs. Despite billions
of dollars spent and a toll of death, addiction, crime, corruption and
lives wasted in prison, it is possible today for anyone who wants
drugs to get them. "For someone my age," says a high school student in
the new film Traffic, "it's a lot easier to get drugs than it is to
get alcohol."

Traffic, Steven Soderbergh's new film, traces the drug traffic in
North America from the bottom to the top of the supply chain.
Soderbergh's film uses a level-headed approach. It watches, it
observes, it does not do much editorializing.

Brought Home

The hopelessness of anti-drug measures is brought home through
practical scenarios, not speeches and messages -- except for a few.
One of the most heartfelt comes from a black man who observes that at
any given moment in America, 100,000 white people are driving through
black neighbourhoods looking for drugs and a dealer who can make $200
in two hours is hardly motivated to seek other employment.

The key performance in the movie is by Michael Douglas, as Robert
Wakefield, an Ohio judge tapped by the White House as the nation's new
drug czar. He holds all the usual opinions, mouths all the standard
platitudes, shares all the naive assumptions -- including his belief
that he can destroy a Mexican cartel by co-operating with the Mexican
authorities.

Wakefield is a good man. His daughter, Caroline (Erika Christensen),
is an honour student. One night at a party with other teen-agers, she
tries cocaine and likes it, very much.

We see how easily the drug is available to her, how quickly she gets
hooked, how swiftly she falls through the safety nets of family and
society. This is the social cost of addiction and the rationale for
passing laws against drugs -- but we see that it happens DESPITE the
law and that without a profit motive drugs might not be so easily
available in her circle.

In Mexico, we meet two hard-working cops in the drug wars, played by
Benicio Del Toro and Jacob Vargas, who intercept a big drug shipment
but then are themselves intercepted by troops commanded by an army
general (Tomas Milian). In California, we meet a middleman (Miguel
Ferrer) who imports and distributes drugs and two federal agents (Don
Cheadle and Luis Guzman) who are on his trail. And we meet the top
executive for this operation, a respectable millionaire (Steven Bauer)
and his socialite wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who has no idea where
her money comes from.

Clear Scenario

Soderbergh's story, from a screenplay by Stephen Gaghan, cuts between
these characters so smoothly that even a fairly complex scenario
remains clear and charged with tension. Like Martin Scorsese's Good
Fellas, Traffic is fascinating at one level simply because it shows
how things work -- how the drugs are marketed, how the laws are
sidestepped. The problem is like a punching bag. You can hammer it all
day and still it hangs there, impassive, unchanged.

The movie is powerful precisely because it doesn't preach. It is so
restrained that at one moment -- the judge's final speech -- I wanted
one more sentence, making a point, but the movie lets us supply that
thought for ourselves. And the facts make their own argument: This war
is not winnable on the present terms and takes a greater toll in human
lives than the drugs themselves.

The drug war costs $19 billion a year but scenes near the end of the
film suggest that more addicts are helped by two free programs,
Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, than by all the drug
troops put together.

Critics Corner

Traffic offers a coolly scathing overview of the multibillion-dollar
drug trade and the largely futile war being waged against it. It is an
utterly gripping, edge-of-your-seat thriller. Or rather it is several
interwoven thrillers, each with its own tense rhythm and explosive
payoff. What these stories add up to is something grander and deeper
than a virtuosic adventure film. -- Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Steven Soderbergh offers one of the most comprehensive pictures of the
drug trade ever seen and does it with incredible cinematic verve. And
he makes one thing clear: This hopelessly tangled and brutally corrupt
world keeps turning, dropping casualties on every side of the fence.
- -- Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

Traffic awakens us to the scope of the drug world and the wheels
within wheels that operate it. However, it is not a teaching tool:
Traffic pulses with a vibrancy that few films can match and, like the
works of Paul Thomas Anderson or Robert Altman, its multi-layered
structure builds a cinematic world that is complex, amoral and
believable. -- Jay Stone, The Ottawa Citizen

There is a strong whiff of the podium about Steven Soderbergh's
ambitious, frequently gripping investigation into America's losing
battle against illegal drugs but when it's working properly the
sprawling film mosaic is observant and deliciously tense. Benicio Del
Toro, as a Mexican cop, and Catherine Zeta-Jones are outstanding. --
Stephen Cole, National Post

Only in the rare great ensemble films, such as Nashville or Dazed and
Confused, do we get the delicious, vibratory feeling that every
character is worth a movie of his or her own. Traffic, a dazzling
drama, is exactly that kind of movie. It tells many stories at once
and each is supple and layered and observant and gripping.

With Traffic, Steven Soderbergh has made the rare Hollywood epic that
dares to entertain an audience by engaging the world. -- Owen
Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

REVIEW

Traffic

Rating four (out of four)

Warning: 14A: Violence, suggestive scenes, coarse language

Playing at: Capitol 6, Colossus Langley, Fifth Ave., Grande, Park &
Tilford, Silvercity Coquitlam, SC Guildford, SC Metropolis, SC
Mission, SC Riverport