Traffic - Criterion Collection |  | Director: Steven Soderbergh
Actors: Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jacob Vargas, Andrew Chavez
Studio: Criterion
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.95
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Rating:  534 reviews
Sales Rank: 21187
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 147 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.7
MPN: CC1622D
UPC: 715515017220
EAN: 0715515017220
ASIN: B000E1OI7G
Theatrical Release Date: January 5, 2001
Release Date: March 7, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Steven Soderbergh examines the effect of drugs as politics, business, and lifestyle, interweaving the stories of a newly appointed drug czar and his family, a West Coast kingpin?s wife, a key informant, and cops on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border. Instantly recognized as aic, Traffic appeared on more than 200 critics? ten-best lists, and earned five Academy Award nominations. Format: DVD |
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Product Description
Steven Soderbergh examines the effect of drugs as politics business and lifestyle interweaving the stories of a newly appointed drug czar and his family a West Coast kingpin?s wife a key informant and cops on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border. Instantly recognized as a classic Traffic appeared on more than 200 critics? ten-best lists and earned five Academy Award nominations.System Requirements:Running Time 147 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 715515017220 Manufacturer No: CC1622D
Amazon.com essential video
Featuring a huge cast of characters, the ambitious and breathtaking Traffic is a tapestry of three separate stories woven together by a common theme: the war on drugs. In Ohio, there's the newly appointed government drug czar (Michael Douglas) who realizes after he's accepted the job that he may have gotten into a no-win situation. Not only that, his teenage daughter (Erika Christensen) is herself quietly developing a nasty addiction problem. In San Diego, a drug kingpin (Steven Bauer) is arrested on information provided by an informant (Miguel Ferrer) who was nabbed by two undercover detectives (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzmán). The kingpin's wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), heretofore ignorant of where her husband's wealth comes from, gets a crash course in the drug business and its nasty side effects. And south of the border, a Mexican cop (Benicio Del Toro) finds himself caught between both his home country and the U.S., as corrupt government officials duke it out with the drug cartel for control of trafficking various drugs back and forth across the border. Bold in scope, Traffic showcases Steven Soderbergh at the top of his game, directing a peerless ensemble cast in a gritty, multifaceted tale that will captivate you from beginning to end. Utilizing the no-frills techniques of the Dogme 95 school, Soderbergh enhances his hand-held filming with imaginative editing and film-stock manipulation that eerily captures the atmosphere of each location: a washed-out, grainy Mexico; a blue and chilly Ohio; and a sleek, sun-dappled San Diego. But Traffic is more than a film-school exercise. Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (adapting the British TV miniseries Traffik to the U.S.) seamlessly weave the threads of each separate plotline into one solid tale, with the actions of one plot having quiet repercussions on the other two. And if you needed more proof that Soderbergh takes unparalleled care with his actors, practically all the members of this cast turn in their best work ever, the standout being an Oscar-worthy Del Toro as the conflicted moral conscience of the film. While no story is fully resolved in the film, you'll be haunted by these characters days after you've seen the film. By far one of the best movies of 2000. --Mark Englehart
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 534
 Just As Timely Now December 11, 2009
John F. Rooney
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Traffic" is as timely now as when it was released in 2000. The American belief in the efficacy of the "War on Drugs" is put to the test in this movie. Michael Douglas plays the newly appointed drug czar, and he learns firsthand from his own daughter what a fruitless and pitiful effort is this thing we call the "War on Drugs." As long as there is an insatiable demand for drugs in the United States, there will never be anything called a victory. The efforts put into the supply side are shown to be farcical. On the supply side corruption and crime are endemic.
The war is really a series of skirmishes. Failures in the "drug war" cause many deaths and misery.
The movie is told in a series of stories with each of the storylines having a set of characters that at times intersect and form the bigger picture. Two detectives on the American side (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman) in San Diego are tracking a drug ring while two detectives on the Mexican side in Tijuana are going after a major cartel. One of the Mexican cops, Javier, is played brilliantly by Benicio Del Toro.
The American drug boss and his wife form one of the story strands. In an effort to save her husband she becomes as ruthless and cold-blooded as he.
What "Traffic" illustrates is that it's the actions and honesty of ordinary cops who win small victories in the "war against drugs" that count, not the futile efforts of misdirected national movements.
The movie is long, but fascinating and worth sticking with. Some scenes are filmed in sepia tones. It's an intense and very significant and pertinent film.
 Typical hollywood BS! August 16, 2009
Anti MTV (peru)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I just didn't see what was so good about this movie, I mean the acting was alright and the cast were suited but the entire 3 storylines have no connections at all (except their all drug related). It was constantly jumping from story to another back and forth in other states and in mexico and it made no sense at all to just make all the characters in their own separate drug stories and life and not have em put together for atleast a better storyline and that was the most annoying part of this movie. Infact that was the biggest horrific flaw of why I dislike this horrible movie other than less action and more boring scenes to pass me out for almost 3 hours.
Really terrible boring hard to follow movie with undeserving awards!
I regret buying this movie and im glad I got rid of this horrible movie at my local movie stop store for a few bucks but it was worth it!
 Unique Take On The Border Drug War June 6, 2009
Craig Connell (Lockport, NY USA)
This is an ugly story in parts but still fascinating to watch for the unique way it's presented, especially for those who like a different visual/audio approach.
As for the acting, Michael Douglas usually plays interesting roles and this is no exception. Benicio Del Toro got an Oscar for his role but I don't know why. He wasn't anything that special. Personally, I liked Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman in here better with the latter adding some much-needed humor to the film. Miguel Ferrer was also intense as the bad guy, "Eduardo Ruiz."
The two kids who played Douglas's daughter and her boyfriend (Erika Christensen and Topher Grace, respectively), received no billing on the back on the DVD but they had major roles. They must have done a good job because they really irritated me. The girl's descent into drug hell was not pleasant to view. This is not an easy story to watch, or comprehend everything that's going on. It also is not one with a happy message.
The visuals were great with many all-sepia toned scenes, or all blue hues. Scenes changed every two minutes to a different ongoing. You had to really pay attention but I never found myself drifting away from the story.
It isn't just the unique visuals; it's an interesting and disturbing story.
Should be re-released with cut scenes re-inserted. January 2, 2009
politicky (San Diego, CA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The bloody war on drugs counted over five-thousand dead in Mexico this year. Do Americans think about that when they "need" their weed, heroin, coke or meth? As someone raised in a border city trying to get by on very little money I'm constantly on alert for who I need to avoid. And disgusted by Americans cavalier attitude towards their nasty habits and the fact that it's getting people killed.
That said, I'd like to recommend a book by a long time law enforcement officer that actually makes sense:
Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing (Hardcover)
by Norm Stamper Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing
(38 customer reviews)
The drug traffic as it really is and from all three perspectives August 31, 2008
Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States(cashbacher@yahoo.com))
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This movie is intense, complex and firmly grounded in reality. The topic is the drug traffic between the United States and Mexico and it follows three interconnected yet somewhat distinct plotlines.
One is set in suburban, affluent Ohio. Michael Douglas plays a judge who has just been nominated by the President of the United States to be the drug czar. Unknown to him, his sixteen-year-old daughter is a heavy user, regularly attending drug parties with her equally affluent friends. Although her mother knows that she is a user, she does not tell her husband, rationalizing it based on the fact that she also used drugs when she was young. As the Douglas character goes to Washington D. C. and walks the halls of power and then goes out into the field to learn more, the daughter's usage spirals out of control until she ends up prostituting herself.
Another plotline is set in San Diego, California, the incoming transit point for drugs from Mexico. Two local police officers intercept a major shipment and capture the local boss. They manage to turn him and he identifies the local kingpin, a married man who is a pillar in the community.
The third plotline involves two local police officers in Tijuana, Mexico and the drug cartel operating out of that city. The police officers are essentially honest, but begin working with a general of the Mexican army and are sucked into the violent morass that is the drug war between law enforcement and the cartels and also between the cartels themselves.
The brutal honesty of this movie in presenting the drug trade as it is makes it almost at the level of a documentary. Some of the best brutally honest lines are uttered by a DEA agent, a drug trafficker and a young man who is a user. The DEA agent responds to a question about their budget by pointing out that the profits in the drug trade or so high that the DEA budget simply cannot compete on the monetary level. The drug trafficker talks about how they did a statistical regression analysis on the movement of vehicles through the border check and concluded that it was cost effective to simply send the vehicles through the border check. They could accept the occasional loss as a normal cost of doing business. When Michael Douglas is searching the black ghetto for his daughter, the drug-using friend of his daughter forcefully points out how the profits of the trade will always lead to greed winning out over the common good.
Presenting the drug trade from the three sides of supplier, consumer and law enforcement, this movie deserves all the awards it received. It is dynamite on a disk.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 534
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