Pubdate: Fri, 05 Jan 2001
Source: San Francisco Bay Guardian (CA)
Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Bay Guardian
Contact:  520 Hampshire, San Francisco, Ca 94110
Fax: (415) 255-8762
Website: http://www.sfbg.com/
Author: Dennis Harvey
Page: 45

HEAVY TRAFFIC

Steven Soderbergh's war-on-drugs story stalls out.

Something about Steven Soderbergh is getting lost in his translation from 
seminal indie problem child to  A-list director. Traffic would be a model 
of intelligent ambiguity and stylistic non pandering if it were "A film 
by... say, Rob Reiner.

Coming from Soderbergh, it's disappointing the same way Erin Brockovich was 
as a well-crafted, low-impact issue movie distinguishable from Mike Nichols 
or Sidney Lumet turf only in its moderately off-center emphasis on 
character quirks and comedy.

If Erin was Norma Rae with less heartwarming gotta-be-me-ness, Traffic is 
the Insider minus the clear-cut assignment of blessings and blame. As 
Michael Mann did last year, Soderbergh subsumes most of his usual 
idiosyncrasies in serving the docudrama form. (Unlike Mann's, however, his 
story isn't factual, it just acts that way. ) And like the insider, Traffic 
is a decent, ambitious movie just fair minded and self-effacing enough to 
leave no lasting impression. Pseudoreportage wrestles art to the mat. OK, 
but: doesn't Soderbergh have better things to do? King of,the Hill, 
Schizopoiis, and Out of sight, to name three personal faves, remainn great 
movies; Traffic, I argue, will not.

Actually, as a concept, Traffic looks worth any major director's time. 
Simutaneous public sanctimoniousness and indifference toward the subject 
have kept the war on drugs off screen, at least in any Incaningful way. But 
the larger issues are complicated, morally confusing, lacking clear 
protagonists or dramatic arcs. The war on drugs maybe second only to the 
plain old war machine as our biggest sociopolitical scam. Well, nobody's 
made Terminator Forever: OThe Military Industrial Complex Strikes Back yet' 
either.

So give Traffic credit for  trying to grapple with a huge, non fun issue on 
fairly populist terms - even if the inspiration had to come from a 
late1980s British miniseries, The original Traffik [sic] followed a 
specific drug trade route from Pakistani poppy fields to English veins, 
glimpsing all backdoor deals, smuggling hazards, and variably effective 
governmental watchdogs between. Stephen Gaghan's new screenplay shifts 
matters to North America, running along a courier line from Tijuana to 
Washington, D.C.

That choice of points A and Z reveals Traffic's weakness for tabloid 
simplification, though Soclerbergh does downplay the glibbest ironies. 
They're key ones, however. Michael Douglas, back in fossilized form after 
Wonder Boys'brief thaw out, play's a conservative Ohio Judge righteously 
gunning for the big time - D.C. drug czardom- and learning beltway politics 
the usual hard way. For a long time it escapes his humorless, preoccupied 
notice that his only daughter, 15-year-old Caroiine (Erika Christensen), is 
rapidly turning into a white preppie on dope.

Meanwhile, San Diego trophy wife Catherine Zeta-Jones is shocked, shocked, 
to discover her husband's bottomless bankroll is, like, 100 percent FBI 
- -seizable. Quality of lifestyle threatened, she must make hard Choices: 
Will it be prep school or public (my gawd) for her cherished son? Virtuous 
poverty or drug queen-pining till hubby gets sprung?

Fortunately, Traffic is an ensemble piece, and the plot threads improve the 
further they get from innocent victimhood (and marquee-value casting). Luis 
Guzman and Don Cheadle are great as DEA agents who get go-between Miguel 
Ferrer over a barrel and really enjoy rolling hit around. Benicio del Toro 
is a corrupt penny-ante Mexican cop who luck into bigger leagues of 
badness, a  windfall that proves too much for his dumber partner (Jacob 
Vargas) to handle. Exspaghetti western dream boat Tomas Milian is 
unrecognizably yucko as General Salazar, our friendly south-of-the border 
cartel buster-cum-profiteer; ditto suddenly wizened Dennis Quaid as the 
Northern variety of four-star scum, an attorney. Lurking around the margins 
are James Brolin, Albert Finney, Amy Irving, Steven Bauer, Benjamin Bratt, 
and umpteen others, including four real-life U.S. senators.

That none of them come off very Airport 1975 - off screen power couple and 
on-screen dead weights Zeta-Jones - Douglas aside - attests  to 
Soderbergh's natural allergy to melodrama. Still, there's a thin line 
between tasteful and gratuitous restraint.

Traffiic is N et another movie expansive in length, locational sprawl 
(every scene even gets its own credit line, and character clutter - but it 
blood pressure stays all too sensibly even. Why make an epic if you're 
going to resist living it large? Oh, yeah: cred. Soderbergh seems to be 
insisting he can make a big movie with the virtues of a small one. Instead, 
somehow he ends up with a small movie that lasts 150 minutes. It's not 
boring, but it isn't enough of anything else, except good for you.

The few multiplex patrons who stumble in expecting crime-syndicate thrills 
may emerge duly aware that the problem is hairier than they knew. But here, 
too, Traffic doesn't go half far enough: we note that multinational 
officials, handcuffers, courts, business interests, upstanding citizens, 
racketeers, and yes, our precious children are all in it together, either 
hog-tied or tying up. ItOs supposed to make you think.

But think what? The script does tittle more than quick-reference the war on 
drugs as an evergreen  propagandistic decoy for governments with more 
important subterranean economic machines (economic race-class segregation, 
military megaspending, corporate policy-buying, environmental pillage to 
keep ka-chinging away. There's no discussion here of responsible usage - 
the omnipresent party favor Hollywood will never admit to. Perhaps I 
blinked past any mention of prisons-as-growth-industry or our gutted rehab 
programs. ThatOs a lot of pieces missing for two and one-half hours.

The film's equal-op finger-pointing surface doesn't fully hide the fact 
that its Mexico looks like sleazebag purgatory versus stateside neat 'n' 
prettiness, a slant not elevated by Soderbergh's just-bein'-arty decision 
to filterize one urine yellow, the other cobalt blue,

It's isn't enough to say, "Hypocrisy  lives here, too," when your most 
lingering "human" faces are just the little girl lost to whoredorn cuz 
busy-at-the-office Daddy forgot to bring home the love. Traffic has the 
integrity to softpedal its cliches and kinda-sorta critique a Bigger 
Picture. To which you might Just Say: Oh.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart