Rating: 
Summary: Great movie -- but I'm sick of multiple DVD versions!
Review: Okay, when I bought the original Traffic DVD upon its release I was disappointed by the lack of extras. Good transfer, clean picture, excellent sound, but practically no bonus material. Still, a great movie IMO. Benicio Del Toro was brilliant (and in my mind the most sympathetic character in the film). Topher Grace ("That 70's Show), Don Cheadle, and Erika Christensen were also excellent... Oh yeah, Traffic, good movie. :)
Rating: 
Summary: TOUGH FLICK--GREAT ENDING
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I like a hardcore cop movie when I can get my hands on one. It had unexpected turns and the surprising good guys. I was never REALLY sure about whose side to be on. The war on drugs is a topic that can always be written about as it's never ending and there are always new twist on who they are used to demoralize the nation...the WORLD.
Watch only when you have the time to concentrate...if not you will have to watch it again and again to get what you missed...but even then, it's worth a repeat viewing.
Michael Douglas was very believable as a DAD EMERGING FROM THE BURST BUBBLE that once surrounded his kids.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many special editions
Review: I thought Traffic was a teriffic movie with a great director. I went out and bought the dvd righht away. But it pisses me off by how so many studios make a normal dvd and then months later come out with a special edition dvd. If you don't have it already buyt the movie, it's great. But big guys in hollywood, stop making multiple dvds!
Rating:
Summary: It succeeded at making you think after it's over....
Review: Like I stated in the title of my view, it makes you think. Drug trafficking is a heavy subject matter to deal with in a movie format. The filmmaker successfully blended 3 separate story lines together using different color lightings and various degrees of handheld camera moves to present it as a docu-drama. This is a very intelligent movie dealing with the drug problem we all face in our society. Drug problem is not far removed from our seemingly 'sheltered' suburban environment and middle class surroundings from the ghettos where it 'should' belong to. I wish all those who care about this problem's social, economical, moral, emotional, and health impacts would watch this movie and think about any possible improvement in dealing with this situation. After the movie, my hats off to all the drug control rank-and-files that do their job daily even though it seems fruitless and wasteful. Like Mr. Topher Grace's character said in the movie: as long as there's demand, there's a supply. There seems to be no stopping from dealers at different levels of distribution to supply the buyers out there. Mr. Del Torro showed a commanding performance as a Mexican cop. He reminds me of Mr. Chou Yun-Fat in John Woo's cop movies in his Hong Kong days. All the characters are uniformily strong and even. There's no weakest link in this ensemble. I don't want to name all of them because it's simply too many. But you will know what I mean after finishing this movie. Mr. Soderbergh deserved his best director Oscar. Keep up the great work, Mr. Soderbergh!
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of compression ... and a killer soundtrack
Review: This film is brilliantly edited, and hugely deserves the Oscar it won in this category. For the first twenty minutes of the film, it's not at all clear who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. You have to see this movie twice, in quick succession, to work out how Soderbergh achieved this deliberate ambiguity. The quality of the deleted scenes on the DVD is extraordinarily high. These missing scenes make you appreciate how much Soderbergh had to cut out in order to stay within 150 minutes, and yet there's fantastic depth to the plot and the characterisation within their condensed form. And finally a word about Cliff Martinez's wonderfully economical soundtrack. It's a bit like Eno -- in fact there's even an excerpt from APOLLO at the end -- and a bit like Harold Budd. (I wish I'd never lost my SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE soundtrack CD, which he and Soderbergh created.)
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: What an amazing movie. It's a shame that the academy (who I've expressed hatred towards in another review) snubbed this movie and instead gave it to Gladiator, an action movie posing as an epic. Don't get me wrong, Gladiator was cool and all, but this was better. It shows all aspects of drug trafficking. Extremely powerful and informative movie. Some say Requiem for a Dream was better and should have won best picture. I think the two movies are very different. While Requiem (also a truly amazing movie) shows one side of drugs and addiction, this shows everything. The performances and direction are top-notch. I can't wait for the Criterion DVD.
Rating:
Summary: RE: a viewer from USA
Review: I think this viewer is mistaken when he/she says people don't know good film anymore. The fact that "viewer" is looking to fast forward shows he/she misses some of the point of the film. The film is supposed to be slow and meticulous because only then can Soderbergh show just how painful and prolonging the process of drug use can be. The script is very inovative to juggle three plots around simultaneously AND keep them interconnected. And yes the characters are haunting, especially Catherine Zeta-Jones. It is absolutely bone chilling to see a pregnant woman demand the killing of another person to save her husband from Jail. THIS IS FILM MAKING AT ITS BEST.
Rating: 
Summary: boring, breaks no new ground
Review: Why are people so impressed with this? It could have been a movie of the week on NBC. "Haunted" by the characters? I don't think so. Thank goodness for fast foward. Script is nothing new or provacative. People apparently don't know what a good film is.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Picture
Review: A great story with great actors in it. Don Cheadle is great, probably one of his best works. A must see for any fan of motion pictures. Truly amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Drugs In America.
Review: Drugs in America are a huge problem. Through various ministries I have worked with over the years I have learned that approximately 80% of homelessness and 75% of crime is a result in some way because of drugs. In the 1980s the U.S. federal government began a war on drugs. Yet, twenty years and billions of dollars later the problem has increased. It's a part of the universal battle of good versus evil and the battle can be wearisome and frustrates even the best. It is this wearisome frustration that Steven Soderbergh brilliantly portrays in the movie TRAFFIC. Simply stated, TRAFFIC is about the war on drugs in America. The story the movie tells is related through three separate yet intricately intertwined tales. The film jumps from one scene to the next, back and forth, but without loosing one's attention. The first storyline deals with a Mexican cop, Javier Rodriquez (Benicio Del Toro). Rodriquez is a good cop working amidst the sleeze and corruption of good people gone bad. Rodriquez fights against the powerful bureaucraticized drug cartels because he dreams of when children can play baseball safely again. The second storyline revolves around Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), the newly appointed U.S. drug czar and his daughter Caroline (Erika Christensen). Unbeknownst to Wakefield, Caroline has become a hard addict, so much so that she eventually prostitutes herself for drugs. His daughters tribulation changes Wakefield's perception about abuses. The final tale is a narration between a jailed drug lord (Steven Bauer), the takeover of the "family" business by his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and the two DEA Agents (Luis Guzman & Don Cheadle) working to convict the dealer and protect the key witness against him. It's a frightening look at ruthless famial loyalty and the anguish of our country's law enforcement. The acting in TRAFFIC is superb, the directing prime, and the cinematography brilliant. Much has been made oer the movie's bleak tone. Nevertheless, though the film is dark it ends in light. The movie leaves one feeling frustrated, but hopeful. As long as the fight goes on, there is always hope.
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