When “Traffic” begins, we’re introduced to two Mexican policemen busting a small, but important cocaine shipment. We don’t know from where the drugs came from and we don’t know what happens to them once they’re transferred.
The police (Benicio Del Toro, Jacob Vargas), don’t know either. For those of us who can’t read subtitles, the situation is made all the worse, as about one-third of the film is in Spanish.
“Traffic,” in its own particular way, doesn’t have the answers either. It’s a contemporary, oftentimes violence-packed thriller, set in the world of drug trafficking. But while most films of this genre tend to downplay the impact that drugs, specifically cocaine, have on society, “Traffic” makes art out of its investigation.
The film tracks three separate, though sometimes intertwining stories, set in the United States and Mexico that each examine drug use, dealing, and enforcement. Benicio Del Toro plays Javier Rodriguez, one of the Mexican police officers, who can do nothing better than turn his head to the corruption of Mexican enforcement.
Michael Douglas plays Robert Wakefield, the newly-appointed United States drug czar who experiences the country’s drug problem first-hand while investigating the War on Drugs and dealing with his daughter’s addiction to freebasing cocaine; and Helena Ayala, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, is forced to take over her arrested husband’s cocaine shipping business to provide for her family.
Director Steven Soderbergh, in top form this year following his dynamite Julia Roberts vehicle “Erin Brokovich,” officially unleashes his dragon with “Traffic.” The incendiary movie, documenting the failure of drug control and prevention, makes no apologies for measuring the hole Americans have dug themselves into. Regardless of all the seized shipments, the convicted drug lords, and all the other small battles won, Soderbergh makes one thing clear: It’s a losing battle which no one has a clue how to win.
The film certainly doesn’t know how to win. It is more content to examine how big the problem is. Despite the big names, the ensemble cast is willing to take a back seat to the main star: Cocaine. Nearly everyone contributes amazing performances, especially Benicio Del Toro and Don Cheadle, who put a face on the business.
“Traffic,” filmed in documentary-style blue and yellow filter, successfully accomplishes a feat rarely seen in contemporary movies: Muckraking. A dangerous subject like drug trafficking wouldn’t normally be touched by a big studio in this Hollywood age, and the “hands in the air” manner in which it’s told may not fit the current definition of entertainment.
The film was eventually picked up and financed by USA Films, a studio synonymous with “Baywatch” and “La Femme Nikita” because of the USA Network cable offerings. In that sense, “Traffic” may be dismissed as a really long, edgy TV movie.
And in some parts, the film feels more like a television crime story than a fluid, socially important discussion on drugs. But that’s only a minor detail in an otherwise artful, intense and conscious examination of a national problem.
