|
How do you wage war with the people you love, with your own family? Steven Soderbergh's Traffic
depicts this dilemma and offers a glimpse of the illegal drug trade using three parallel stories:
Judge Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas) is the US president's newly appointed Drug Czar who
must work with Mexican authorities to control entry of prohibited drugs from Mexico to the USA. Unknown to him, but tolerated by his wife Barbara (Amy Irving), their
16-year-old daughter Caroline (Erika Christensen) experiments on drugs and develops severe addiction to cocaine and heroine.
Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) and his partner, Manolo Sanchez (Jacob Vargas), are poor
Mexican policemen who reluctantly surrender to their officers' enticement of a few more pesos to add to their measly pay if they work for the drug lords.
In San Diego, California DEA law enforcers Montel Gordon (Don Cheadle) and Rey Castro (Luis
Guzman) succeed in capturing drug lord Carlos Ayala (Steven Bauer). Ignorant of her husband's illegal business, 6-months pregnant Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones) asks
Carlos's lawyer Arnie Metzger (Dennis Quaid) to get him out of jail, while she carries on her husband's deals to protect herself and their son, and maintain their wealthy
status.
Based on a British TV mini-series entitled Traffik, the film Traffic
follows the storyline of the series but the location is changed from Europe and Pakistan to the United States and Mexico. Stephen Gaghan's screenplay fully develops the characters and the lead stars, particularly Benicio Del Toro and newcomer Erika Christensen, give compelling and convincing performances. Soderbergh again displays his mastery of the hand-held camera giving his work a distinctive texture, like he did in
Erin Brokovich. He clothes his scenes with a distinctive light and texture enabling the viewer to recognize the changes of location: cool blue for Wakefield's world,
sepia tones for Mexico and bright lights for San Diego.
Traffic does not offer any solution to the drug menace. What it does is demonstrate the destructive power of drugs and how it affects people at all levels: law enforcers, politicians, the judicial system, crooks, families, young people and the drug lords themselves. It shows the futility of government efforts in eradicating a problem of this magnitude because of the immense wealth and power of drug lords. It is also an distressing reminder of how easily exposed and vulnerable young people are to drugs. One may feel helpless at the enormity of the problem but
Traffic suggests that the battle can be fought only on an individual level by beginning with our families using the weapons of faith, wisdom, love and concern.
(Date reviewed: May 25, 2001)
|
