‘Traffic’ sweeps the streets, audiences; take two
“Traffic,” not so new to the rest of the world, but new to Cache Valley, is the kind of movie that grabs you and doesn’t let go until it’s good and ready.
“Traffic” is about war, the drug war, and takes the audience to all the complex fronts of this war, from national, to law enforcement, to sociological and finally to the personal levels.
Traffic begins in Tijuana, Mexico, with two state police officers, Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) and Manolo Sanchez (Jacob Vargas), who are invited to join General Arturo Salazar’s (Tomas Milian) army in the fight against the Mexican cartels.
Meanwhile, Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), a Ohio State Supreme Court Judge, has just been appointed to be the President of the United States’ new drug czar and head the nation’ s fight against illegal drug trafficking.
During which, Montel Gordon (Don Cheadled) and Ray Castro (Luiz Guzman) are undercover DEA officers who arrest Carlos Ayala (Steven Bauer), a suspected drug baron who fronts his illegal actions with legitimate businesses. Ayala’ s wife, Helena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), is left to fight off threats to her family’s existence while her husband is imprisoned.
Last, but definitely not least, is the character of Caroline Wakefield (Erika Christensen), the 16-year-old daughter of Robert Wakefield who begins to experiment with drugs socially and quickly becomes entangled into the lifestyle of addiction.
From this point, the movie takes these characters on a winding plot that brings them face to face with many of the horrors affiliated with the drug scene and its ethical challenges and personal nightmares.
The best acting in this movie comes from Benicio Del Toro (“The Usual Suspects,” “Snatch” ) and relative newcomer Erika Christensen (“Leave It to Beaver”). Christensen gives an especially riveting performance as the upper-class teenager who falls from third in her class to essentially prostitution to keep her drug habit going. The interaction between Douglas and Christensen in the movie would cause any parent to shift nervously in his seat, as the man in charge of keeping drugs out of the United States is virtually powerless to save his own daughter from the same fate.
Other strong performances come from Dennis Quaid (“Frequency”), Catherine Zeta-Jones (“Entrapment”) and Clifton Collins Jr. (“Light It Up), who plays Frankie Flowers, a homosexual assassin who becomes involved with more than one character in the movie. “Traffic” is steady, compelling and shot artistically to bring the lives of those affected by the drug trade to life.