Review of Traffik (2018) by Matthew L — 21 Apr 2018

Oh boy! This is a humdinger. I saw the trailer for this and was like, okay, rote thriller. I sat down in the theatre and was quite surprised. Albeit a rote thriller, the movie is actually insatiably watchable.

It's straightforward storytelling and genuinely likeable lead duo show that a terrible, terrible movie can be made watchable given a few good elements. I cannot recommend this movie to anyone looking for quality, believable thriller territory.

I can, however, tell you that if you can go into a movie that has nary an honest moment, but manages to entertain wildly, then this is a great recommendation. I hated everything about the movie, but have to say I quite enjoyed my time spent watching it.

There is garbage dialogue and characters so unbelievable you literally sit there thinking "what human being wrote this drivel"? And then by about halfway through you start to wonder what editor allowed such idiocy into what could have otherwise been a very effective thriller.

Additionally, it felt to me like a cheap use of sex trafficking, which doesn't strike me as the right thing to use cheaply. The only real stand the movie makes against sex trafficking is inherent in its characters personalities, but more often than not, it just feels like the movie is exploitative.

There's so much wrong with this movie, including an unforgivable plot element in which a character who revealed a "secret", later chews out the person responsible for the secret as if they didn't know about it.

But they were the ones who originally brought it up. The bad writing and bad taste do not taint the inherent entertainment value of the movie. If you're okay with a little exploitation of a very serious subject (which really isn't okay), and with some bad dialogue and far reaching plot, all for the sake of "entertainment", then Traffik is your kind of movie! It's never boring, but sometimes insulting.