Traffic

View Date: January 6th, 2001

Cast :

Writer: Stephen Gaghan (screenplay) Simon Moore  (original story)

Director: Steven Soderbergh 

It seems that Hollywood and its filmmakers have taken it upon themselves to be the town criers of our moral and social conscience.  Repeatedly, we are preached to, lectured and even given societal shock treatment in regards to all that is wrong and bad in our world today.  An example of this exists with the presence of two films this past year focusing on the evils of drugs, the differences between them being in perspective and delivery.  Darren Arronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream is powerful shock treatment focusing on the evils and effects of drug abuse, while Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic deals not so much with effects, but with the entire picture, cause, enforcement and repercussions.  Both films use visual mastery to tell their messages, but while Requiem was a powerful, emotional draining, but effective commentary on drug use and abuse, Traffic comes off more preachy and grandstanding.  The intentions are good but the overall message gets diluted amidst the speeches and inter-cutting of stories that at times is incongruous. 

Traffic portrays an aspect of drugs that has really never been completely focused on; almost from a beginning to end, as if following the trail from harvest to usage.  The characters portrayed intersect in an Altman-esque manner with the main focus being more on how their actions affect the others, rather than how they interact on a personal level.  Douglas is an Ohio judge who is appointed to be the nation’s drug enforcer.  In an ironic twist, his daughter becomes addicted and spirals out of control while her father’s rises.  Guzman and Cheadle are agents who are protecting a key witness of a San Diego businessman believed to be trafficking drugs while Jones is the businessman’s wife who maintains her husbands innocence.  Finally, Del Toro is the Mexican agent who tries to maintain loyalty in an atmosphere immersed in corruption.  Yes, this is a lot to cram into a 2-plus hour movie, and sometimes it becomes too much dealing with over 50 characters and trying to keep their stories balanced and organized.  But Soderbergh, working off of a story from a British miniseries Traffik, uses his visual trickery and toys to keep everything relatively organized.  Del Toro’s world is usually bathed in a grainy, yellow tone, typifying the dingy, poor moniker that most have about the country and their processes.  There is no doubt that Soderbergh is a visionary, he can take simple stories, like The Limey and Erin Brockovich, and keep the attention and story going by using the camera to create and represent emotions.  The problem here is that there is too much story to tell, and sometimes the most interesting stories (Douglas’ daughter, Del Toro) are cut away from during their most intense moments.  Unlike Paul Thomas Anderson did in Magnolia; this does not create a curiosity to know more, but rather a frustration at having to wait.  Soderbergh could learn lessons from Anderson and Altman on how to balance multiple characters in a story revolving around people in interconnected storylines.

In a cast with this many characters, actors and stories bouncing around, it is hard for a performance to standout, which is why the highly underrated and under appreciated Benecio Del Toro’s turn is impressive.  As a cop trying to keep his head above water in an ocean of evil, Del Toro displays his typical range and intensity, with a rarely seen emotional edge. Hopefully, this will be the role that garners him the recognition he deserves.  Rather than going through the other performances, which are for the most part very good, I’ll point out a couple that seem to get lost, or wasted in the film’s slightly overblown message.  Quaid seems out of place in his role as the family lawyer, wandering around a bit aimlessly, while feigning his intensity levels.  In a lesser film, it might be tolerable, but in a film where the message is the key, and the characters are it’s messengers, he stands out as being heavily overshadowed.  Also miscast is Douglas’s wife Jones, who appears to be here to look pretty and pregnant (which she does) but is falling into the Kim Basinger slot of pretty face and little ability.  She’s little more than show amidst the glow of the others.

Ultimately, Traffic is a movie that says a lot, without actually saying very much at all.  It is a powerful visual message that goes to the soapbox one too many times in trying to preach its message.  The perspective of showing every level of the problem, in order to make it hit home to those who it should, works for the most part, but the characters seem to be giving speeches and lectures instead of just reacting naturally to the dangers around us.  Pair this one up with Requiem for a before and after of drug usage, and it works, but on its own, Traffic is a well made mini-series, crammed into 145 minutes, losing some of its focus, but letting the realism of it all be its strongest message.  I don’t think this is quite the wake up call that Soderbergh wanted it to be, working more as a tap on the shoulder to watch what’s happening, and what could happen if things don’t change.  “It’s easier for a kid to get drugs, than alcohol,” tells a frightening social message, and this film needed to focus a bit more on shocking us, and less on preaching the evils.  Show, don’t tell, is the best method to truly get through. ($$ out of $$$$)

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