[.ca] Traffic (Widescreen Signature Series Edition)

Interesting look at drugs:
"TRAFFIC" is three interwoven stories about the drug trade and its impact on people. It attempts toshows how drugs can affect everybody connected to the drug dealers and pushers eg. family. It works in a way, but not enough to make me feel empathy for the characters. It's fast moving and engaging, but something is missing from this film. Big names like Zeta Jones and Douglas aren't enough to make the film great. If you really want to see a film that tackles the subject really well but in a different light, may I suggest "Requiem for a Dream". The devastation of drugs is well told in this film.

Traffic: Hierarchizing America in the U.S.-Mexico Binary:
Traffic opens with a banner on the screen announcing the filmic location to be Mexico, "twenty miles southeast of Tijuana." The film is grainy and has a decidedly yellow (although some have romanticized this color, calling it sepia) tone, and the audience is introduced to two State Police officers, Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) and Manolo Sanchez (Jacob Vargas), who are speaking Spanish. The dialogue begins with Javier explaining a nightmare to Manolo. Later, Javier and Manolo capture some drug transporters, the audience is introduced to the corrupt General Salazar (Tomas Milian), and the scene shifts to Columbus Ohio, where the graining is removed and the film is saturated with rich blue tones. Two minutes later, San Diego in all its beauty, arrives on screen. The audience is immediately alerted to the difference between the United States and Mexico. Not only through language, but also through Soderbergh's use of the tobacco filter. But this should not be surprising; establishing differences between the two countries is necessary for Soderbergh to maintain the hierarchical position of the United States over Mexico. And, this hierarchization is, I argue, why Soderbergh is able to critique America, vis-à-vis U.S. drug policy, while still garnering critical and popular praise: implicating Mexico as the agent of America's woes and advancing stereotypical representations of both Mexico and Hispanics, effectively deposits Mexico and its inhabitants into the ancillary position of the U.S./Mexico binary. Richard Porton's article in Cinéaste discusses the process Soderbergh goes through to create the yellowing of the Mexico scenes in the film. More importantly, in articulates the implications of Soderbergh's yellowing all of Mexico: "\oSoderbergh\c shot the Mexican sections 'through a tobacco filter' and then overexposed the film to imbue these vignettes with an oversaturated look. Mexico, therefore, becomes a miragelike, evanescent realm where life is cheap and morality is infinitely expendable. As film scholar and Latin American specialist Catherine Benamou observes, the movie 'posits an historical and moral hierarchy between the postmodern United States--which has to retrieve its moral foundations and family values--and premodern Mexico, which has presumably never been able to draw the line between the law and lawlessness'" (42) Significant about the hierarchy advanced by Benamou is that Mexico is implicated on both sides. First, the film certainly portrays Mexico as a place of lawlessness. This is seen in the opening sequence with the drug transporters: not only are they breaking the law by transporting illegal substances, but General Salazar's intervention highlights (if not immediately, then certainly later in the film) the lawlessness of the federal authorities. Lawlessness is witnessed again twenty-one minutes into the film when two American tourists are pleading for Javier's help in finding their stolen car; here, the corruption of the state authorities is illuminated by Javier's having to give the couple the phone number of a man whom they will pay, who, in turn, will pay the police to make their car appear. And, of course, the hit man Frankie Flowers (Clifton Collins, Jr.) being Hispanic and living in Mexico continues to fortify the notion of Mexico as lawless. Moreover, Soderbergh's representations of Mexicans as savages vis-à-vis the torturing of Frankie Flowers by General Salazar's men also accounts for Benamou's description of Mexico as premodern. The only thing that seems strange is General Salazar yelling to his men that "we are not savages," as if the exclamations of a corrupt official enmeshed in drug trafficking could somehow erase the scenes of stereotypic barbarism that Soderbergh captures through his tobacco filter. Second, by yellowing all the Mexico sequences in the film, Mexico is implicated as the agent which has, as Benamou states, led the "postmodern United States" astray from its "moral foundations and family values," which it must now retrieve. Wood explains that by "beginning with the yellow camera filters, Soderbergh insinuates that nearly all Mexicans are somehow involved in the drug trade" (761). But the yellowing of Mexico implicates both the people and the land; Wood further states that "from the highest echelons of power to the street dealers and sidemen, Soderbergh's portrayal of life across the border establishes Mexico (and by extension, all of Latin America) as the fountain of evil that is the drug trade" (760). Since, as Porton claims, Soderbergh's film is "primarily obsessed with how drugs have befouled the American family nest" (42), the argument is thus: (1) Benamou states that the U.S. is in a hierarchical position to Mexico but must still retrieve its moral foundations and family values; (2) these foundations and values are being destroyed by drugs (as seen via the Wakefield family); (3) yellowing the Mexico sequences implicates (nearly) all of Mexico and its inhabitants in the drug trade; (4) therefore, the disintegration of family values and morals in America is a result of lawless Mexico. In this light, Mexico is doubly culpable: one, Mexico's own lawlessness has averted its progression into a postmodern stage of development; two, Mexico's premodernity and lawlessness has thwarted the United States and threatens to derail their progression to the next stage of cultural development, which allows Soderbergh to make his critique of the United States. Traffic can adduce the United States as a country lacking in morals and family values, but only by simultaneous producing a scapegoat that Americans can point to as the entity responsible for their woes. Wood observes that, by portraying Javier as a "noble soldier while nearly all his compatriots fall prey to kidnapping, assassination, torture, and betrayal, Traffic offers a skewed portrait of Mexican society in getting its anti-drug message across to U.S. audiences" (760).

Traffic, not your typical Half Baked:
this movie ruled. the shaky camera and grittyness is awesome. but instead of some review on how it is an academy award brilliant film of substance abuse,etc i will tell you how cool it is, even if those cool parts glorify drug dealers. i like the part where that girl is at the party and the kid topher grace from that 70s show is talking all philosophically cause hes so stoned. and the kid on the other couch is like 'im so high' and he passes out and they drop him off at the ER and the cop comes and he yells the F word. ya i cant say it cause of amazon.com policies. its also funny when he has to get that girl messed up in a seedy hotel downtown to get with her. and theyre like doing trashy drugs too, whats up with that? since when do private school seniors do heroin through their foot? man i thought it was all about coors light and weed. guess not. the movie starts out cool too when benicio del toro is in the mexican desert with his highway patrol giant sunglasses waiting for this plane to go over them thats traffiking cocaine. hes such a mexican badass. and his buddy cop next to him is playing game boy. thats the first noise you here in this 3 hour plus long drug war epic: mario jumping over a green tube. i love it. another great part is when don cheadle and that funny peurto rican guy luiz something shoot that drug dealer in a san diego chuck e. cheese place. and the clown gets scared and goes back into the kitchen. o ya when michael douglas takes topher grace out of spanish class and the teachers like where are you going and hes like im taking seth on a field trip and he takes him to the ghetto to find his prostitute heroin junkie 17 year old daughter. traffic is a great movie cause it has moments like this. stephen s. the director is a badass who makes movies like the limey and this and the writer is good too. hes like 21 and he got the oscar for best adapted screenplay. this movie rules for stoners, concerned parents and politicians alike.

Flat out, lousy movie-making:
This is a frustrating film for many reasons. Firstly the schizophrenia of the plotlines is poorly done and distracting. It merely further hindered me from actually gaining any sort of emotional connection to the characters (and that's counting the headstart the dialogue had given). The themes of the movie are so apparent that they become oppressive. A previous reviewer encapsulated the film with the phrase: Drugs R bad, and while I can appreciate a noble premise like this, the way Soderbergh badgers the audience with the futility of the "war on drugs" and the affect that drugs have on addicts is devoid of tact and feels contrived to the point of nausea. The characters are not well-developed either. Their actions are completely obvious. While this is not usually a just complaint about a movie, the lack of intrigue in the plot, the often cheesy dialogue, and the general lack of subtlety makes for an obnoxiously assuming film. It comes across not only snobbish to the layperson, but boring to the average movie-goer. This movie really drags. This is an in-escapable fact. There were too many trifling scenes in this movie. But that's just how it rubbed me. Although, I can see how many a pseudo-intellectual film buff could trick himself into gushing about how thought-provoking and "original" this film was, I can also see how many critics and sincere film-goers would like it as well. The message is certainly an important point of discussion regardless of how you feel on the issue, and the conclusions leave much to be debated (although, not about the film) My main point is this: Unless you're interested in grinding your way through a movie with a plot that can be summarized in the political/humanitarian issue of the film, it's not worth seeing. If you're interested in drug-related issues, do yourself a favor and simply walk, don't run to your nearest bookstore and sift through the myriad of books on the matter. Heck, why not (since you're online anyway) look through one of the lists here at Amazon.com?!

'The drug is not in the doll, the drug is the doll':
I have finally seen this film in it's entirety and I like to say that `Traffic' is a richly entertaining epic that recalls the great works of the 1970s, when directors like Robert Altman and Francis Ford Coppola engaged mass audiences with works of genuine substance. Soderbergh works on a larger canvass than he's ever done before, bouncing several characters and plot-lines against and off each other, so that images and themes rhyme and echo. Although the subject matter is drug trafficking, this is not an "issues" movie per se. Instead, it's a profoundly affecting dramatic thriller where the destructive forces of drugs cut across different sections of society. Some will say that it takes too long, or that some of the scenes are a bit slow. But does everything go fast paced in real life? It just tries to sketch a realistic view of handling with drugs. And maybe there isn't a lot of action going on, but that's not the goal of the movie. This film has an amazing ensemble cast where everybody is working at the top of their game. However, Benicio Del Toro definitely stands out with the breakthrough performance. I don't think it's accidental that the movie begins and ends with shots of him. He plays Javier Rodriguez, a Mexican police officer caught in a futile and corrupt system, and it's as compelling of a character as Michael Corleone. Del Toro is exceptionally relaxed and subtle, keeping his thoughts and feelings private from the other characters in the films, but sharing it with the camera. Del Toro navigates the audience through a world of impossible choices and moral corruption, quietly simmering with intense conflict just beneath the surface. Benicio's been an indie stalwart for years and this film shot his stock through the roof. Michael Douglas is also terrific, adding another strong performance to his gallery of flawed men in power. He shows genuine fear and vulnerability in a harrowing scene in which he searches for his daughter in a drug dealer's den. I've never seen Erika Christensen before, but she makes an impressive debut. Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman are as loose, limber and spontaneous as ever, providing plenty of comic relief as well as keeping it real. Catherine Zeta-Jones takes a complete 180 from her past roles and admirably plays against her looks, appearing very pregnant while thrown into gritty surroundings. Dennis Quaid is appropriately slimy as a corrupt lawyer. Anybody who is starved for a genuine piece of film making should breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy Soderbergh's engaging film.