HEAVY TRAFFIC

Steven Soderbergh's war-on-drugs story stalls out.

Something about Steven Soderbergh is getting lost in his translation from
seminal indie problem child to A-list director. Traffic would be a model
of intelligent ambiguity and stylistic non pandering if it were "A film
by... say, Rob Reiner.

Coming from Soderbergh, it's disappointing the same way Erin Brockovich was
as a well-crafted, low-impact issue movie distinguishable from Mike Nichols
or Sidney Lumet turf only in its moderately off-center emphasis on
character quirks and comedy.

If Erin was Norma Rae with less heartwarming gotta-be-me-ness, Traffic is
the Insider minus the clear-cut assignment of blessings and blame. As
Michael Mann did last year, Soderbergh subsumes most of his usual
idiosyncrasies in serving the docudrama form. (Unlike Mann's, however, his
story isn't factual, it just acts that way. ) And like the insider, Traffic
is a decent, ambitious movie just fair minded and self-effacing enough to
leave no lasting impression. Pseudoreportage wrestles art to the mat. OK,
but: doesn't Soderbergh have better things to do? King of,the Hill,
Schizopoiis, and Out of sight, to name three personal faves, remainn great
movies; Traffic, I argue, will not.

Actually, as a concept, Traffic looks worth any major director's time.
Simutaneous public sanctimoniousness and indifference toward the subject
have kept the war on drugs off screen, at least in any Incaningful way. But
the larger issues are complicated, morally confusing, lacking clear
protagonists or dramatic arcs. The war on drugs maybe second only to the
plain old war machine as our biggest sociopolitical scam. Well, nobody's
made Terminator Forever: OThe Military Industrial Complex Strikes Back yet'
either.

So give Traffic credit for trying to grapple with a huge, non fun issue on
fairly populist terms - even if the inspiration had to come from a
late1980s British miniseries, The original Traffik [sic] followed a
specific drug trade route from Pakistani poppy fields to English veins,
glimpsing all backdoor deals, smuggling hazards, and variably effective
governmental watchdogs between. Stephen Gaghan's new screenplay shifts
matters to North America, running along a courier line from Tijuana to
Washington, D.C.

That choice of points A and Z reveals Traffic's weakness for tabloid
simplification, though Soclerbergh does downplay the glibbest ironies.
They're key ones, however. Michael Douglas, back in fossilized form after
Wonder Boys'brief thaw out, play's a conservative Ohio Judge righteously
gunning for the big time - D.C. drug czardom- and learning beltway politics
the usual hard way. For a long time it escapes his humorless, preoccupied
notice that his only daughter, 15-year-old Caroiine (Erika Christensen), is
rapidly turning into a white preppie on dope.

Meanwhile, San Diego trophy wife Catherine Zeta-Jones is shocked, shocked,
to discover her husband's bottomless bankroll is, like, 100 percent FBI
- -seizable. Quality of lifestyle threatened, she must make hard Choices:
Will it be prep school or public (my gawd) for her cherished son? Virtuous
poverty or drug queen-pining till hubby gets sprung?

Fortunately, Traffic is an ensemble piece, and the plot threads improve the
further they get from innocent victimhood (and marquee-value casting). Luis
Guzman and Don Cheadle are great as DEA agents who get go-between Miguel
Ferrer over a barrel and really enjoy rolling hit around. Benicio del Toro
is a corrupt penny-ante Mexican cop who luck into bigger leagues of
badness, a windfall that proves too much for his dumber partner (Jacob
Vargas) to handle. Exspaghetti western dream boat Tomas Milian is
unrecognizably yucko as General Salazar, our friendly south-of-the border
cartel buster-cum-profiteer; ditto suddenly wizened Dennis Quaid as the
Northern variety of four-star scum, an attorney. Lurking around the margins
are James Brolin, Albert Finney, Amy Irving, Steven Bauer, Benjamin Bratt,
and umpteen others, including four real-life U.S. senators.

That none of them come off very Airport 1975 - off screen power couple and
on-screen dead weights Zeta-Jones - Douglas aside - attests to
Soderbergh's natural allergy to melodrama. Still, there's a thin line
between tasteful and gratuitous restraint.

Traffiic is N et another movie expansive in length, locational sprawl
(every scene even gets its own credit line, and character clutter - but it
blood pressure stays all too sensibly even. Why make an epic if you're
going to resist living it large? Oh, yeah: cred. Soderbergh seems to be
insisting he can make a big movie with the virtues of a small one. Instead,
somehow he ends up with a small movie that lasts 150 minutes. It's not
boring, but it isn't enough of anything else, except good for you.

The few multiplex patrons who stumble in expecting crime-syndicate thrills
may emerge duly aware that the problem is hairier than they knew. But here,
too, Traffic doesn't go half far enough: we note that multinational
officials, handcuffers, courts, business interests, upstanding citizens,
racketeers, and yes, our precious children are all in it together, either
hog-tied or tying up. ItOs supposed to make you think.

But think what? The script does tittle more than quick-reference the war on
drugs as an evergreen propagandistic decoy for governments with more
important subterranean economic machines (economic race-class segregation,
military megaspending, corporate policy-buying, environmental pillage to
keep ka-chinging away. There's no discussion here of responsible usage -
the omnipresent party favor Hollywood will never admit to. Perhaps I
blinked past any mention of prisons-as-growth-industry or our gutted rehab
programs. ThatOs a lot of pieces missing for two and one-half hours.

The film's equal-op finger-pointing surface doesn't fully hide the fact
that its Mexico looks like sleazebag purgatory versus stateside neat 'n'
prettiness, a slant not elevated by Soderbergh's just-bein'-arty decision
to filterize one urine yellow, the other cobalt blue,

It's isn't enough to say, "Hypocrisy lives here, too," when your most
lingering "human" faces are just the little girl lost to whoredorn cuz
busy-at-the-office Daddy forgot to bring home the love. Traffic has the
integrity to softpedal its cliches and kinda-sorta critique a Bigger
Picture. To which you might Just Say: Oh.