Review of Traffic (2000) by Nbfc — 09 Jan 2018

A film similar in style to Crash and Babel that uses many intertwining storylines to give multiple perspectives (users, enforcers, politicians and traffickers) on the illegal drug trade. Based on the 1989 television series Traffik, director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, Magic Mike, Logan Lucky) is a seasoned veteran in creating star-studded ensemble pieces. The use of different color grades to visually distinguish each of the different stories goes a long way in helping the audience keep track. It is easily one of the best-looking of Soderbergh’s movies and there is some very well-done acting from Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle and Benicio del Toro.

Admittedly it’s far from perfect, it can get dam preachy (the subplot with Erika Christensen plays out like an After School Special) at times and the length (147 min.) does cause the movie to drag at times.

And even though it’s a bit over-simplified, the movie nonetheless does a very good job of offering a wide-scale overview of it’s subject manner. With Soderbergh’s tight editing and a good number of tense sequences, this 2000 War on Drugs epic is worth the watch.