Traffic (2000)

I had the opportunity to watch a favorite movie of mine once again, and thought I would do a throwback review. An all star cast comes together in Traffic, an incredibly suspenseful movie about the drug trade in the United States and its components in Mexico. Traffic is a so-called "hyperlink movie" - that is, the protagonists of the film rarely share screentime together, but their seperate storylines touch just enough to bring everything together in a central message. I personally am a big fan of this method of film-making - and nearly every movie I have seen that does this well has ended up as a favorite of mine (Babel is another notable film that employs this method of film-making).

Plot Summary
Traffic tells the story of the drug trade from four perspectives - a user, a DEA officer (played by Don Cheadle) and his partner, a U.S. politician (played by Michael Douglas), and a Mexican police officer swept up by circumstance into helping the drug cartels in Tijuana (played by Benicio Del Toro). The plot is a bit intricate, and as I said before, these four story lines barely touch, so I will let you read the plot at Wikipedia if you want a spoiler. However, I would recommend seeing this movie without reading too much about it - the plot develops in a way that is endlessly surprising, and very moving.

Why you should go out of your way to see this movie
This movie is very compelling on many levels. Visually, the film makers added a heavy yellow tint to everything that happens in Mexico, and a blue tint to everything that happens in the United States - which give the characters and storyline in the U.S. a detached and cold feeling, which goes very well with the politicians struggling to figure out how to wage the war on drugs, and the users who have a great deal of angst against the society in which they live - and give the characters and storyline in Mexico a hot and in your face feeling, which adds depth to those parts of the movie.

The acting is superb. Benicio Del Toro won an Oscar for his work here, and well deserves it. He is so authentic as a man torn by his morals and his instinct for survival as he gets swept up in the drug trade that dominates the Tijuana landscape. Douglas, Cheadle, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Dennis Quaid all round out the all star cast and really give great performances.

The plot as I mentioned before is intricate, and as the film wraps up, the resolution really resonates and conveys the ongoing battle and struggle that rages around drug use, trafficking, and policy. However, the movie doesn't seem to take one side or another on any issue - it does a great job of just laying out the problem and letting the audience soak it in. It definitely makes you think, and gives you a peek into a dark world that really exists out there, though many of us may never have realized it.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone.

Here is the trailer from youtube, but actually, I don't think it does the movie much justice - I couldn't find a better one, so here it is anyway.