Traffic movie 20116/30/2023 That last twist, by the way, is awfully convenient, but for the purposes of the story, we won’t quibble. The other story involves a judge (Michael Douglas) who is nominated to be the United States’ drug czar, and ambitiously plans to stomp out narcotics, not realizing that his own daughter (Erica Christensen) is a user who is spiraling into greater addiction. The subsequent arrest, however, kicks over a hornet’s nest of debt and potential violence for the dug kingpin’s wife (Catherine Zeta Jones), who had no idea where her husband’s money came from and now must become ruthless in order to protect her way of life. In the main, three-pronged narrative, two decent Mexican cops (Benicio Del Toro, Jacob Vargas) fall under the sway of a general with big-time plans to take down the head of a drug cartel, while two DEA agents (Don Cheadle, Luis Guzmán) try to knock out that same cartel’s San Diego-based distributor. In actuality, the film intertwines three subplots that hold fairly tight, while another story is laid on top as a sort of counterpoint. Many have described the film as a collection of stories that are only tangentially related. But in a way, that’s almost all that we get, because Traffic is in such a hurry to arrive at a broad social point that its dramatic content feels like an afterthought. The story calls for focus on Mexican and American cops, a drug kingpin and his oblivious trophy wife, an addicted teenager and a politician who intends to crack down on drugs. Make no mistake, this is a smart and absorbing film from one of our smartest and most interesting filmmakers, but it is almost exclusively about ideas and not really about people-everyone on display is selected primarily for the symbolic function they serve in a hierarchy, and less for their individual weight. Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic is a sprawling and ambitious work that examines the drug trade with a scope that does honor to the word “epic.” But it’s emotional temperature is low, and I think that is because it sees its characters more as pawns and less as characters. Moffett, Jacob Vargas, Miguel Ferrer, Erika Christensen, Steven Bauer, Clifton Collins Jr., Topher Grace. Starring Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Luis Guzmán, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, D.W. Screenplay by Stephen Gaghan based upon the miniseries Traffik by Simon Moore. Manolo Sanchez (Jacob Vargas) and Javier Rodriguez (Benicio del Toro) are menaced by two thugs (Joe Yenque, Emilio Rivera) in a tense scene.
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