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Long movies tend to fall into a certain problem: due to their long length, how can they sustain audience interest? Some movies, like Gladiator, move at a decent pace with a long running time. Others, like Traffic, drag at times. Traffic is a movie with three plots going on simultaneously, all of which connect in some way. In Mexico, Benicio Del Toro is a corrupt cop who has an opportunity to wipe out a drug cartel. In Washington, D.C. Michael Douglas is the new drug czar with a daughter in high school who is addicted to more than studying to maintain her good grades in school. Catherine Zeta-Jones is a pregnant mother who discovers from Dennis Quaid that her husband is involved in drug trafficking. Some of these plots can become confusing, especially the Mexican one which I felt went on for way too long. The movie feels a bit bloated… I think 20-30 minutes could have been cut out of the film easily. The acting in the movie is very good all-around, even from the usually lackluster Catherine Zeta-Jones. The director Steven Soderbergh tries some interesting techniques in this film, the most noticeable being the use of filters and different lighting to signify a change in location. All of the Mexican scenes are shot through a yellow filter which makes the scenes appear more grainy. The scenes in Washington, D.C. use lots of blue lighting while the scenes with Catherine Zeta-Jones' character appear in normal colors. It is an effective way to change scenes without resorting to a subtitle reading "WASHINGTON D.C." every few minutes-although the movie uses the technique of labeling new locations a lot in the beginning. Also the scenes in Mexico have characters speaking in Spanish with English subtitles. Although the actors speak slower than native Spanish speakers would (with the exception of Selma Hayek), it still was a brave thing for Soderbergh to have a movie with a lot of stars with 1/3 of the scenes being in Spanish. While Michael Douglas is the only A list actor in the movie, every single actor does a good job overall. Most of the supporting characters are the kind of actors where you remember their faces, but can't recall their names. This movie uses has a lot of humor to offset the dramatic moments. Traffic is an excellent movie hampered by an overly long ending. I give Traffic *** out of ****. |