Traffic; America wake up!!!!!

Although there are about 150 reviews of this movie at last count, allow me to add mine as to the growing number

There is a lot that can be said about the U.S. government’ War on Drugs; its wasteful to the tune of billions of dollars a year; it is a misguided attempt to stem the tide of a business that lines the coffers of many to the tune of many more billions a year, from high priced lawyers and bankers to 11 year old children in our cities inner city and rural streets; it is a cancer eating away at the very parchment of our Constitution, and thus our fundamental rights; the money spent on it could be better spent on treatment and at getting at the root cause of why so people feel compelled to take drugs despite the obvious negative effects it has on our society; politicians could give a rats behind about really eradicating the festering boil that is drug abuse as long as they can give sound bites and write endless platitudes about how they are doing their part to fight the War on Drugs. But what can’t be said it that the War of Drugs is a success by any stretch of the imagination. Despite the “War” and the billions spent on it, we as a nation are losing and in a big way. New and more powerful drugs, many home grown are cropping up on our streets and in our schools, draining the future of our nation just a surly as the life drains from a addict over dosing on a bad hit, or a hit that is too pure for his system to take. The drug culture we have spawned affects us all, and none of us are immune to its effects; not even a high powered judge who makes his living making an example of those who dare traffic in the deadly white stuff from the south.

Which brings me to my review of Traffic, a film that dares to tells us that drugs doesn’t just affect minorities, and inner city citizens—something I think we all knew but didn’t dare say aloud for fear that the world as we know it might end—it affects every class and every color.

Three Movies in One…

Brought to us in brilliant fashion by Steven Soderbergh, Traffic is a fascinating, often uncomfortable look into the human story of the drug culture through the eyes if three very different and distinct sets of families and two totally different cultures; 1. a Mexican police officer (Benecio Del Toro) struggling to maintain his integrity, honor, and sense of duty to is profession despite the corruption that stabs at his from every dark corner; 2. the wife (Catherine Zeta Jones)of a wealthy businessman who tries to cope with disruption of her life after the husband (Steven Bauer) is arrested by the DEA for being a drug kingpin; and 3. a well known and respected State Supreme Court Justice (Michael Douglas) who is just picked to be the President’s new head of the Office of Drug Enforcement Policy must save his own drug addicted daughter (Erika Christensen), from the very drug culture he seeks to combat.

Each mini move is shot using different film textures and lighting, and the effect is mesmerizing. Soderbergh gives a rare and frightening glance into the vast interconnect and often-unseen world of drugs and the lives it touches and in most cases ruins by its very presence. The movie is also a social commentary on drug use by well to do White kids who bemoan their station in life because they have nothing better to do with their time. They sit around in opulent multi-million dollar mansions reflect on the utter futility of their lives and cope with it by ingesting an interesting and ever increasing array of drugs.

The acting in Traffic was surprisingly stellar. Each of the actors in this movie turned in Oscar caliber performances, but Beneico Del Toro’s stands out because of the depth and complexity of the persona he portrayed. Catherine Zeta-Jones surprised me with the strength of her performance and I applaud her courage in doing a film in which her normally slender body had been transformed by the weightiness of pregnancy.

Wake Up Call…

This movie should serve as a wake up call to America that what we are doing to our country and ourselves is slowly killing our humanity. None of us have to luxury of living in a bubble, none of us is so isolate that what we do cannot affect another human being and ultimately society as a whole. In our rush to obtain the American Dream we as a society have somewhere along the way have lost our moral and spiritual compass, our respect, and our pride. The well-polished American veneer hide a far more scratched and marred piece we would just assume never looked at and never ever acknowledge. Traffic reminds us that at some point we are all touched by the drug cultures’ grimy hand, and that in the end the War on Drugs should not fought from without, it must be fought from within if we are ever going to win it.

Rating: (R)

Cast of Characters:

Benecio Del Toro
Michael Douglas
Dennis Quaid
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Amy Irving
Don Cheadle
Erika Christensen
Miguel Ferrer
Benjamin Bratt
Luis Guzman


Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older