Cast: Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones
Rating: M (violence, offensive language, drug use)
Running time: 147 mins
Opens: Thursday at Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas
Review: Russell Baillie
Every modern American war, it seems, eventually gets the movie it deserves. For America's "War on Drugs" that movie is Traffic, a compelling, sprawling drama which shows that campaign as grand political hypocrisy which is hazardous to users and largely meaningless to those who supply them.
It does all that through the sure eye and clear storytelling of director Soderbergh, working from a script based on the British Channel 4 series Traffik.
He focuses on four stories showing the connections in the narcotics trade, from cops on both sides of the United States-Mexican border, to dealers for whom arrest can either be a temporary business problem or a death sentence, to a newly appointed "Drug Czar" for whom abstract policy ideas are soon informed by harsh reality.
That Soderbergh manages to join all those dots into a movie which is an engaging drama first and illustrative diagram second is undoubtedly why this has won him, with Erin Brockovich, two Oscar nominations for best director.
Like that Julia Roberts' star turn, Traffic also shows his ability to turn stars into believable characters.
A then-pregnant Zeta-Jones is certainly impressive as the well-to-do California wife, who turns her initial shock at her businessman husband's arrest for drug smuggling into ruthless loyalty.
Likewise, her real-life hubby Douglas, with whom she never shares a scene, makes a fine fist of playing the newly-anointed czar who finds his otherwise well-adjusted daughter has her own substance abuse problems. It's a set-up that initially feels contrived, but the performances of Douglas and Erika Christensen, as his Straight-A student who's a Class A user, are persuasive.
Traffic does hit a few false notes, however. It occasionally jars and hectors when some unlikely characters feel the need to preach on the drug conundrums that the movie itself otherwise makes self-evident.
But for the most part Traffic rings true. It's served by a striking visual style achieved by Soderbergh himself shooting with hand-held cameras and a post-production process to give each storyline a different colour tone.
And by the performances, too, of its vast ensemble, which extend to a few senators playing themselves in backroom discussion with Douglas' character.
Acting-wise though, the movie belongs to Del Toro as a Mexican detective we meet in the sun-bleached opening scenes somewhere outside Tijuana. An honest cop in a place where "law enforcement is an entrepreneurial activity," Del Toro's lawman is a riveting portrait of disillusionment.
In the war on drugs, he's another forgotten soldier who knows all too well where the real casualties lie.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from Lifestyle
Why do we age? Scientists are figuring it out
New York Times: Researchers are investigating how our biology changes as we grow older.