Traffic (2000)
Country: US
Technical: col 147m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Luis Guzmán, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Steven Bauer, Miguel Ferrer, Amy Irving, Salma Hayek
Synopsis:
The US Drugs Tsar elect, the wife of a San Diego businessman, and a Mexican police officer are in differing ways implicated in the war against drugs trafficking; in each case they discover that someone near to them is not what they seem, and they need to re-evaluate their lives.
Review:
It is the honesty with which the film addresses the ways in which they do this, and its reluctance to sit in judgement, or at least opt for easy targets, that surprises. Whether it is in favour of a liberalisation of the laws on drugs is unclear, but it is probable. It is in any case a tense and sustained piece of cross-cutting, which succeeds better than Cradle Will Rock in keeping a number of balls in the air at the same time without interest flagging. And the cast responds to the challenge brilliantly.
Country: US
Technical: col 147m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Luis Guzmán, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Steven Bauer, Miguel Ferrer, Amy Irving, Salma Hayek
Synopsis:
The US Drugs Tsar elect, the wife of a San Diego businessman, and a Mexican police officer are in differing ways implicated in the war against drugs trafficking; in each case they discover that someone near to them is not what they seem, and they need to re-evaluate their lives.
Review:
It is the honesty with which the film addresses the ways in which they do this, and its reluctance to sit in judgement, or at least opt for easy targets, that surprises. Whether it is in favour of a liberalisation of the laws on drugs is unclear, but it is probable. It is in any case a tense and sustained piece of cross-cutting, which succeeds better than Cradle Will Rock in keeping a number of balls in the air at the same time without interest flagging. And the cast responds to the challenge brilliantly.
Country: US
Technical: col 147m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Luis Guzmán, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Steven Bauer, Miguel Ferrer, Amy Irving, Salma Hayek
Synopsis:
The US Drugs Tsar elect, the wife of a San Diego businessman, and a Mexican police officer are in differing ways implicated in the war against drugs trafficking; in each case they discover that someone near to them is not what they seem, and they need to re-evaluate their lives.
Review:
It is the honesty with which the film addresses the ways in which they do this, and its reluctance to sit in judgement, or at least opt for easy targets, that surprises. Whether it is in favour of a liberalisation of the laws on drugs is unclear, but it is probable. It is in any case a tense and sustained piece of cross-cutting, which succeeds better than Cradle Will Rock in keeping a number of balls in the air at the same time without interest flagging. And the cast responds to the challenge brilliantly.