Traffic
Plot
There isn’t so much a main plot in Traffic, it’s more a combination of three different stories all playing out at the same time. Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas) is an Ohio Supreme Court Judge who has been appointed the new drug Czar but he has one problem in that his own daughter is a drug addict.
Helen Ayala (Catherine Zeta Jones) discovers that her husba
Plot
There isn’t so much a main plot in Traffic, it’s more a combination of three different stories all playing out at the same time. Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas) is an Ohio Supreme Court Judge who has been appointed the new drug Czar but he has one problem in that his own daughter is a drug addict.
Helen Ayala (Catherine Zeta Jones) discovers that her husband is a major drug dealer when he is arrested. Faced with police surveillance and serious threats over her children’s lives she’s forced to take over where her husbands affairs.
Javier Rodiguez (Benicio Del Toro) is a police officer in Mexico fighting the battle against drug smuggling in his country. In a country where the drug cartels have more money than the government he finds that corruption goes all the way to the top and people are not what they first appear to be.
Video/Audio
The film is presented in a 1.85:1 Anamorphic format. It’s a little difficult to talk about the picture quality as all three stories were filmed in such radically different ways. For example all the scenes in Mexico looked very bleached and grainy. While the scenes in Washington have a very blue appearance. I think it’s probably fair to say that the picture quality as how it was originally meant to look and there’s certainly no artefacts or spots/scratches.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is very good although it’s very concentrated on the front sound stage with not too much use of the surround channels. Whenever the channels are used however they are used effectively.
Extras
I’m afraid that there isn’t too much here on the extras side. First up is an 18-Minute making of featurette called Inside Traffic. The first three and a half minutes of this is basically an extended trailer, the remainder of the feature is a mix of behind the scenes footage, cast & crew interviews and film clips. This is a reasonable feature but doesn’t really give too much information.
There’s a collection of three Trailers, two US and one German. There’s also a selection of TV Spots. Finally there’s a 40 image Photo Gallery, this is a mix of behind the scenes photos and film stills. Not exactly a huge amount of extras but at least there’s something I guess.
Overall
Traffic is one of those films with several different storylines running concurrently. Unlike most of these films however the different plots don’t completely meet up at the end. That’s no to say that this is a bad thing however as all three main stories are equally gripping in their own right. I’m not always a big fan of these kind of multi-plot films, even some of the more popular ones I didn’t enjoy (Pulp Fiction, Magnolia).
One of the things that really make the film shine is the superb acting from some of the cast. A lot of people talk about how good Benicio Del Toro was as the Mexican cop and while I agree he was excellent the person that impressed me the most was Caroline Wakefield as the drug addicted daughter of Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas). I found her to be totally convincing in this role. Catherine Zeta Jones is also very good, her transition from doting wife, through frightened mother and eventually to drug smuggler is portrayed perfectly.
I also found that the unusual style of filming really helped to enhance the film, for example all the scenes in Mexico are shot with a grainy, bleached out style while Washington is portrayed with a strong blue colour. This really helps with the constant switching between storylines. I also liked the fact that we don’t get a nice jolly ending where everyone lives happily every after as this would have ruined the overall style of the film.
The disk comes in a plastic Amary case and contains a two-page booklet that contains an interesting little background piece about the film from original idea to production, the chapter listings are on the back page. All on screen menus are static and the film is broken up into a huge 68 chapters. Subtitles are available in English, French and Spanish.
This film is a gritty and sometimes brutal interwoven story with superb direction from Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brokovich, The Limey) and well deserved the four Oscars it received. It’s a shame there’s not more extras on the disk but I wouldn’t be surprised if a special edition will appear at some point. Regardless of the lack of extras I have to give this film a very well deserved 4.5 out of 5.
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