Traffic Has Never Been As Enlightening

As Soderbergh’s Latest Triumph

There are very few things in life as frustrating as being stuck in traffic. There are much worse things, to be sure, but very little can make one’s efforts seem so futile as when you’re trying to get from Point A to Point B and all you can do is move at a snail’s pace because you’re caught in the middle of bumper-to-bumper gridlock. It doesn’t matter if you drive a Porsche, a snazzy SUV or a beaten-down jalopy. If the roadways are jammed, you aren’t going anywhere.

Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh’s latest triumph, Traffic, conveys the universality of our nation’s drug problem in similar fashion: whether you’re rich or poor, older or younger, majority or minority, you’re likely in some way to find yourself spinning your wheels against this destructive epidemic.

Now playing at Bethel Cinema, Traffic is a meticulously crafted, intricately layed-out drama that effortlessly tosses out four different story threads — each even filmed to look visually disparate by a crafty Soderbergh, who moonlights here (under a pseudonym) as his own cinematographer — and then slowly, yet surely weaves what should become, at best, a patchwork quilt, into a seamlessly knit piece of efficient and provocative cinema. The four major plot strings are as follows: in Tijuana, two lowly, yet honest cops (played by Benicio Del Toro and Jacob Vargas), wage war against the Mexican drug trade as best they can without much official help; two earnest, jocular Drug Enforcement Administration agents (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman) apprehend a San Diego dealer (Miguel Ferrer) and try to persuade him to turn on his boss; a pregnant, wealthy socialite (Catherine Zeta-Jones), whose only previous concerns had been whether to have red wine with duck, is stunned to find her lifestyle threatened when her upstanding-businessman husband may be quite the contrary; and an Ohio judge (Michael Douglas), now the country’s newest drug czar, finds the battle more local than he ever imagined as, unbeknownst to him, his honor student daughter (Erika Christensen) freebases with her private-school classmates.

For Traffic, Soderbergh relies heavily upon a company of actors that have worked with him before — his troupe, if you will. Cheadle makes a welcome return after appearing in Soderbergh’s Out of Sight, and Guzman follows up The Limey with his role here as Cheadle’s wise-cracking sidekick. Albert Finney, fresh off Erin Brockovich from earlier this year, has a bit part, and you might notice a few other familiar faces from Soderbergh’s films. Each performer is reliably spot-on, but perhaps the newcomers to the fold are the standouts here: Del Toro is quite good as the weary foot soldier in an increasingly overwhelming struggle; Zeta-Jones is captivating as a housewife forced to cope (in very staggering ways) with keeping her life in balance; Douglas is solid as a government trooper looking to make a difference but perhaps more than overwhelmed; and young Christensen is frighteningly real as the disaffected teen losing herself in addiction.

If there is any weakness to be found in Traffic, it’s that Soderbergh, while crafting realistic, intriguing characters that all hold our attention and gain our sympathies, never quite grabs hold of the audience’s heart and makes us truly care about these characters and their predicaments. There’s some measure of clinical precision to the whole enterprise. Though there are plenty of characters with which we may identify, Soderbergh does not go out of his way to give us any “rooting” interests; therefore, despite outstanding work by the cast, the audience tends to keep a distance from the action on the screen.

Nevertheless, Traffic, rated R for mature themes (i.e., strong drug content), strong language, violence and some sexuality (in other words, it’s a definite R film), is a top-shelf movie made by a director at the top of his game. Not only has Soderbergh directed two, top- caliber films in one year (Erin Brockovich and Traffic), but the high quality and inventiveness of his previous two films (Out of Sight and The Limey) put him on some kind of hot streak. I can’t wait to see what he’s got next for us!