Traffic
is a riveting, semi-documentary drama, and yet calling it that
is a disservice to just how suspenseful and stylish an entertainment
it is. This is a banner year for Steven Soderbergh. With Erin
Brockovich, he stripped away Julia Roberts' polished matinee
idol familiarity to reveal something more deeply captivating,
and now he's delivered the most vital film of his career. Riffing
on the British Channel Four miniseries Traffik, Soderbergh and
screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (Rules of Engagement) interweave
three loosely related stories about the ongoing drug war being
waged across the U.S.-Mexican border; all three narratives are
equally engrossing and intersect in surprising ways. Refreshingly,
Soderbergh refuses to moralize, putting a human face to all
sides of a high-stakes, contradictory world of coercion and
addiction that transcends race and class. But don't be put off
by prosaic or formalistic analyses — rest assured that
this is no egghead critics' picture.
Mexican cop Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) treads a dangerous
line between warring drug cartels, with the ever-present prospect
of turning informant to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency further
complicating his existence. When his less-savvy partner (Jacob
Vargas) takes the DEA bait, Javier gets caught up in blackmail
and murder, just for trying to save his friend's neck. Meanwhile,
a conservative Ohio State Supreme Court Justice (Michael Douglas)
gets appointed by the president as the nation's new drug czar,
but he and his wife (Amy Irving) are fighting a more personal
war with their teenage daughter (Erika Christensen), who's becoming
increasingly hooked on crack and heroin. Back in the border
badlands, two undercover DEA agents (Don Cheadle, Luis Guzman)
in San Diego stake out the home of a trophy wife and mother
(Catherine Zeta-Jones), whose life takes an unpredictable turn
when she learns the true nature of her powerful husband's professional
life.
From a
director prone to overly long movies — consider the somewhat
over-praised Out of Sight's protracted heist climax —
this is surprisingly lean, muscular filmmaking. Slipping back
and forth across borders and alternating between English and
subtitled Spanish scenes, Soderbergh never lets his sprawling
story get away from him and acts as his own cinematographer
(using the pseudonym Peter Andrews) in addition to directing.
Yet for all his usage of handheld cameras, jump cuts, and
carefully variegated film stocks, none of the filmmaking calls
attention to itself; the stylistic flourishes directly enhance
the movie's sense of immediacy and urgency.
Soderbergh
has also assembled a top-flight ensemble cast — generously,
every player of any prominence gets at least one good scene
— which is perfectly attuned to his sense of social realism.
In sharp contrast to the pot-headed professor he played in
Wonder Boys, Michael Douglas gives a smashing performance
as a swiftly fraying Capitol Hill straight arrow; while his
story line almost approaches the unintentional camp of Paul
Schrader's Hardcore, he never once turns his grieving parent
into an over-the-top vigilante. Also terrific are Christensen
and Irving as his family, That '70s Show star Topher Grace
as a wise-ass junior drug hustler, and Marisol Padilla Sanchez,
whose haunting beauty looms over the entire film.
Luis Guzman,
Don Cheadle, Dennis Quaid, Albert Finney, Clifton Collins
Jr., Vargas, Miguel Ferrer — the list of strong turns
goes on and on. A very pregnant Catherine Zeta-Jones demonstrates
a rich lode of hitherto unrevealed dimension, but the real
star is Benicio Del Toro. For the first time, a little older
and a little paunchier than in his hip, eye-catching turns
in such films as The Usual Suspects, Del Toro gets to play
a man with heart and soul. His agonized conscience is the
core of Traffic's power. This is a film about human relationships:
with each other and with a form of commerce whose fiendish
stranglehold on modern society is far too complex to be wished
away by simply saying no.
Rated
R for pervasive drug content, strong language, violence, and
some sexuality.
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