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List Price: $39.95 | | Label: Criterion
Salesrank: 57362
Released: March 7, 2006 |
| Our Price: $10.10 |
| Used Price: $4.50 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Intertwining vignettes frame this tale of America's escalating War on Drugs. Ohio Supreme Court judge Robert Wakefield has been appointed the nation's Drug Czar, his new position made more daunting by the discovery that his teenage daughter Caroline is a heroin addict. Meanwhile, DEA agents Montel Gordon and Ray Castro are pursuing Helena Ayala, wife of jailed kingpin Carlos Ayala, as she seeks to the control the business that her husband had kept hidden from her. South of the Border, duplicious local constable Javier Rodriguez is fighting the battle with his own jaded, questionable ethical code.
Description of Traffic - Criterion Collection:
Featuring a huge cast of characters, the ambitious and breathtaking Traffic is a tapestry of three separate stories woven together by a common theme: the war on drugs. In Ohio, there's the newly appointed government drug czar (Michael Douglas) who realizes after he's accepted the job that he may have gotten into a no-win situation. Not only that, his teenage daughter (Erika Christensen) is herself quietly developing a nasty addiction problem. In San Diego, a drug kingpin (Steven Bauer) is arrested on information provided by an informant (Miguel Ferrer) who was nabbed by two undercover detectives (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzmán). The kingpin's wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), heretofore ignorant of where her husband's wealth comes from, gets a crash course in the drug business and its nasty side effects. And south of the border, a Mexican cop (Benicio Del Toro) finds himself caught between both his home country and the U.S., as corrupt government officials duke it out with the drug cartel for control of trafficking various drugs back and forth across the border.
Bold in scope, Traffic showcases Steven Soderbergh at the top of his game, directing a peerless ensemble cast in a gritty, multifaceted tale that will captivate you from beginning to end. Utilizing the no-frills techniques of the Dogme 95 school, Soderbergh enhances his hand-held filming with imaginative editing and film-stock manipulation that eerily captures the atmosphere of each location: a washed-out, grainy Mexico; a blue and chilly Ohio; and a sleek, sun-dappled San Diego. But Traffic is more than a film-school exercise. Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (adapting the British TV miniseries Traffik to the U.S.) seamlessly weave the threads of each separate plotline into one solid tale, with the actions of one plot having quiet repercussions on the other two. And if you needed more proof that Soderbergh takes unparalleled care with his actors, practically all the members of this cast turn in their best work ever, the standout being an Oscar-worthy Del Toro as the conflicted moral conscience of the film. While no story is fully resolved in the film, you'll be haunted by these characters days after you've seen the film. By far one of the best movies of 2000. --Mark Englehart
Traffic - Criterion Collection Reviews:
1.5 stars for a terrible movie! 
2009-08-16 - I just didn't see what was so good about this movie, I mean the acting was great and the cast was perfect but the entire storyline has no connections at all except their all drug related, it was constantly jumping from story to another in other states and in mexico and it made no sense at all to just make all the characters in their own separate drug stories and life and not have em put together for atleast a better storyline and that was the most annoying part of this movie, infact that was the biggest horrific flaw of why I dislike this horrible movie other than less action and more boring scenes to pass me out for almost 3 hours.
Why on earth did this movie won 4 addademy awards? I don't know, but it really didn't deserve it at all.
I regret buying this movie and im glad I got rid of it.
Unique Take On The Border Drug War 
2009-06-06 - This is an ugly story in parts but still fascinating to watch for the unique way it's presented, especially for those who like a different visual/audio approach.
As for the acting, Michael Douglas usually plays interesting roles and this is no exception. Benicio Del Toro got an Oscar for his role but I don't know why. He wasn't anything that special. Personally, I liked Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman in here better with the latter adding some much-needed humor to the film. Miguel Ferrer was also intense as the bad guy, "Eduardo Ruiz."
The two kids who played Douglas's daughter and her boyfriend (Erika Christensen and Topher Grace, respectively), received no billing on the back on the DVD but they had major roles. They must have done a good job because they really irritated me. The girl's descent into drug hell was not pleasant to view. This is not an easy story to watch, or comprehend everything that's going on. It also is not one with a happy message.
The visuals were great with many all-sepia toned scenes, or all blue hues. Scenes changed every two minutes to a different ongoing. You had to really pay attention but I never found myself drifting away from the story.
It isn't just the unique visuals; it's an interesting and disturbing story.
Should be re-released with cut scenes re-inserted. 
2009-01-02 - The bloody war on drugs counted over five-thousand dead in Mexico this year. Do Americans think about that when they "need" their weed, heroin, coke or meth? As someone raised in a border city trying to get by on very little money I'm constantly on alert for who I need to avoid. And disgusted by Americans cavalier attitude towards their nasty habits and the fact that it's getting people killed.
That said, I'd like to recommend a book by a long time law enforcement officer that actually makes sense:
Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing (Hardcover)
by Norm Stamper Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing
(38 customer reviews)
The drug traffic as it really is and from all three perspectives
2008-08-31 - This movie is intense, complex and firmly grounded in reality. The topic is the drug traffic between the United States and Mexico and it follows three interconnected yet somewhat distinct plotlines.
One is set in suburban, affluent Ohio. Michael Douglas plays a judge who has just been nominated by the President of the United States to be the drug czar. Unknown to him, his sixteen-year-old daughter is a heavy user, regularly attending drug parties with her equally affluent friends. Although her mother knows that she is a user, she does not tell her husband, rationalizing it based on the fact that she also used drugs when she was young. As the Douglas character goes to Washington D. C. and walks the halls of power and then goes out into the field to learn more, the daughter's usage spirals out of control until she ends up prostituting herself.
Another plotline is set in San Diego, California, the incoming transit point for drugs from Mexico. Two local police officers intercept a major shipment and capture the local boss. They manage to turn him and he identifies the local kingpin, a married man who is a pillar in the community.
The third plotline involves two local police officers in Tijuana, Mexico and the drug cartel operating out of that city. The police officers are essentially honest, but begin working with a general of the Mexican army and are sucked into the violent morass that is the drug war between law enforcement and the cartels and also between the cartels themselves.
The brutal honesty of this movie in presenting the drug trade as it is makes it almost at the level of a documentary. Some of the best brutally honest lines are uttered by a DEA agent, a drug trafficker and a young man who is a user. The DEA agent responds to a question about their budget by pointing out that the profits in the drug trade or so high that the DEA budget simply cannot compete on the monetary level. The drug trafficker talks about how they did a statistical regression analysis on the movement of vehicles through the border check and concluded that it was cost effective to simply send the vehicles through the border check. They could accept the occasional loss as a normal cost of doing business. When Michael Douglas is searching the black ghetto for his daughter, the drug-using friend of his daughter forcefully points out how the profits of the trade will always lead to greed winning out over the common good.
Presenting the drug trade from the three sides of supplier, consumer and law enforcement, this movie deserves all the awards it received. It is dynamite on a disk.
Buy the DVD Version Instead 
2008-03-12 - I liked this movie. The cast was pretty good and the acting and story were also strong.
The HD DVD sucks royally. The video quality is like a regular DVD. I saw this using an HDMI connection on a 1080 HDTV on which other HD DVDs have looked much better. High definition discs are still new and I expect it will take some time to improve the technology, but this movie is an exact replica of the DVD version.
I bought this at Best Buy, on sale for almost the same price of the regular DVD. And it is definitely worth less than the regular DVD because I could at least watch a DVD on my blu-ray player when they become somewhat affordable in the distant future. This is why I like combo formats better than regular HD DVDs.
