Traffic

Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Erika Christensen, Steven Bauer, Don Cheadle, Luis Guzmán
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Thriller
2000

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Traffic is several stories woven together with one thing in common- drugs. One story revolves around the newly appointed U.S. official (Michael Douglas) to win the war on drugs. However, his daugther (Erika Christensen) is developing a drug addiction problem. In San Diego, a drug lord (Steven Bauer) is caught by two detectives (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzmán). The drug lord's wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) finds herself in trouble with her husband's drug bosses, and must come up with $3 million or her son will be killed. In Mexico, a cop (Benecio Del Toro) finds himself torn between his country, and the U.S., as any decision he makes will greatly effect the drug business.

Review:

Tim: A funny thing happened to me when I saw this film in the theater. I was watching the previews before the film, and thinking to myself it was bizarre that all the previews were for children's films. I didn't think too much of it, and got ready to see the film. When the feature film finally came on, much to my surprise, as well as the rest of the theater, Pokemon 3 came on. This caused much uproar in the theater and caused many people to exclaim, "What the hell?" Luckily, we discovered the theater accidentally switched the films, so we just switched rooms.

After that fiasco, I was ready for Traffic to start. It's difficult for me to rate this film. The cinematography was at times outstanding, and at times incredibly annoying. The actors all played their roles tremendously. Michael Douglas is great in this film, but the best performance by far is the difficult and confused role beautifully acted by Benecio Del Toro. Steven Soderbergh does an amazing job as director, making a brilliant film.

Traffic has so much going for it, yet I feel so horrible giving it a lower rating than it might have deserved. In Traffic, several different story lines are going on at the same time, one after another. These scenes do add something to the film, the way they are interwoven together. However, they quickly become annoying and some scenes are so short that you become frustrated. My biggest complaint with this movie is that it is over two hours long, and drags on unbelievably. If Traffic was an hour and a half long, it would have been an incredible film. However, the length of the film takes much away because you just want the different story lines to come to some resolution(which doesn't really happen). The film could have ended time and again, and I just wanted it to end so badly. When the film was over, I never saw an audience belt out of a theater faster than this one. I actually feared for my life as I was certain I'd die as the audience trampled me to death.

It is sad that the length and many slow parts hurt this film so much. Traffic has powerful and excellent drama, and some of the funniest lines I have ever heard in a movie. Traffic has an all star cast, many of whom give perhaps the best performances of their career. With all these excellent aspects, it is unfortunate that the length and slow parts drag this otherwise excellent movie down.


Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6.5



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