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Spanish Adds to Traffic's Realism |
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Part 1: The Review
If there's one movie that demonstrates that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, it's Traffic, Steven Soderbergh's award-winner and Best Film contender about the effects of drug trafficking.
Traffic interweaves four stories: the learning experiences of a judge who becomes the national drug czar; the descent of his 16-year-old daughter into the deepest despairs of drug addiction; conflicts in and among the drug cartels of Mexico and the law enforcement agencies fighting them; and the developments following a California man's arrest for drug trafficking.
Filmgoers going to see this film for its star power are most likely to be wanting to see Michael Douglas, who plays the drug czar; Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays the wife of man accused of drug trafficking; and Don Cheadle, a cop. All three do credible jobs, but only Cheadle gets the opportunity to make much of his role, as he proves likable despite his questionable ethics and foul mouth. The best acting comes from some of the lesser-known stars, including the Puerto Rican native Benicio Del Toro, who won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his role as Mexican constable, and Erika Christensen, who is frightfully convincing as a teen drug abuser. Del Toro's Oscar was the first acting award ever for a primarily Spanish-speaking role, for which he also won a Golden Globe award.
Traffic
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Don Cheadle, Dennis
Quaid, Benicio Del Toro, Erika Christensen, Jacob Vargas
Content advisory: Some violence including shootings and acts of mental and physical torture, incessant vulgar language and some profanity, depictions of drug use,
some sexual content and partial nudity. Rated R (ages 17 and up) in the United States.
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With the possible exception of the Mexican intrigue, none of the four story lines could stand on its own as a half-hour TV show, much less as the plot of a major motion picture. But as the stories are woven together, scene by scene in seemingly random order switching among the mostly unconnected plots, they paint a compelling picture of both the evils of drug abuse and the horrendous consequences of drug trafficking and the efforts to halt it.
What makes the film so compelling is its unflinching realism, despite the fact that the action is often seen through a sepia tint for the Mexican story line and a blue one for the teen's travails. Not the least of those realistic touches is the use of Spanish (with English subtitles) for the story taking place in Mexico. Not in recent memory has a major Hollywood picture used a foreign language so much, and certainly not in a movie that is expected to be a contender for major awards.
One of the major weaknesses of Traffic is also one its strengths. Traffic has about a dozen major characters (or with that many, they might all be called supporting characters), and the film focuses almost exclusively on how their lives are affected by the drug trade. We find out very little about the rest of the characters' lives. What compels a nationally obscure judge to take a position as drug czar? What compels his daughter, who seemingly has it all, to risk everything she has for drugs? How did the wife of a drug trafficker remain so ignorant? What compels some drug traffickers to become traitors to their compadres? And what causes particular police to break the law in order to enforce the law? We can make plenty of assumptions about these behaviors and more, but the film leaves the motivations of many characters a mystery.
Even so, the film has a way of drawing viewers into the characters' lives, as bleak as most of them are, and even though there are no real heroes to be found. Somehow, Soderbergh kept this film from being as depressing as it could have been, for behind all the evil there in the end appears to be a thread of hope, at least in intent if not in deed.
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