Traffic

Brilliant film! Very clever and well made giving a pretty scary insight into how drugs affect everyone in all walks of life. Fantastic performances by all.

I saw this film at the cinema years ago. It was so bad, 6 of the seats got up and walked out.

... for whilst they are many the story is well worth the (long) wait and the characters are belieable (mostly), and full of empathy even though long-drawn-out.

Some aspects are inspired - visualising the complex interactions between people crossing continents and yet crossing the same street. Some aspects are as clunky as they can be (the grading of the different locations is heavy-handed).

Well worth the watching, still a great film. I'm off to go looking for the Traffik film from Channel 4 now.

Stunningly well-made film directed by Steven Soderberg about the serious problem of drug trafficking across the Mexican border into America and the far reaching effects of these illegal drugs on every aspect of society. Everything about this film is first rate, from the direction, the cinematography and the script, to the acting.

I would like to have seen the original Channel Four film 'Traffik' that people speak so highly of, but to compare the two different mediums is hardly fair.

Soderberg's big screen version sits head and shoulders above any other big budget drug-based movie I've seen in years. The action is fast, exciting and real edge of the seat stuff without glamourising either the subject matter or any of the characters - a common complaint about American crime movies.

Particularly good acting from Benecio del Toro, playing a Mexican police chief, and Erika Christenson as the tragic young heroin addict daughter of High Court judge, Michael Douglas.

Although many people will have seen it when first released, it, this is one of those movies that benefit from a second or several viewings.

What a shame that so many viewers have apparently 'missed', or ignored, the power of this film. Just check out the Oscars, starting with Best Director for Soderbergh! Of course you do need to stay awake. It does merit a second viewing as the 'threads' that bind it together can, at first, be hard to grasp. Has it aged? No, not at all. The 'drug wars' which tormented the USA and Mexico last century are now reaching epic proportions. The subject matter is more relevant than ever. The true horror resides, perhaps, not in the violence, torture, corruption and terror that penetrate even into the courtroom but in Soderbergh's depiction of a poor-little-rich-girl (Erika Christensen), 16yr old daughter of US 'drugs czar' Robert Wakefield whose screen parents (Michael Douglas and Amy Irving) are drowning in despair and confusion about how to save her. There are no aspects of the terrible scourge of drugs that Soderbergh spares us. But it's a first-class thriller and edge-of-the-seat ride at the same time. Benecio del Toro gives a terrific performance. He dominates the movie. The direction is superb. And, as a bonus, watch out for a different version of Peter Riegert, unforgettable in Local Hero - 'one of the best films of the 20th century' - as Attorney, Michael Adler. All in all, if you can cope with violence, a film that should not be missed.