Traffic

Rating:
Summary: HORRIBLE
Review: This movie was by far one of the WORST movies I've ever seen!! However if you can watch 5 movies at one time and keep up with each movie all at the same time then I suppose you'll like this movie. If you're like me and only care to watch one movie at a time then this movie is NOT for you! I found this movie confusing, boring, and horrible! I DO NOT recommend this movie to anyone. All of my friends agree that it was horrible and can not figure out what all of these people who say that it's going to be a classic are talking about!

Rating:
Summary: overrated
Review: This was a decent film but I failed to see the reason behind why it got so much acclaim. It is a great depiction of the drug war situation, yes. But I didn't find the overall plot very compelling and the film itself isn't really very entertaining. Traffic is a great movie for showing the viewer "this is the way things are" (from a totally pessimistic point of view) but when it comes to powerful storytelling, it lacks. One reason for this is the fact that there are many stories all going on at once, and the characters in each of these stories have their own conflicts to resolve. But the film shifts its attention from one to the other much too often and it seems that none of them have enough time or description to really set in with the viewer. It seems more like each one is given a cursory, impersonal overview which at the end doesn't really leave any lasting effect on the audience. The cast did a fine job with their roles, but none of them really had to do much to challenge or showcase their utmost abilities as performers. Most of the conflicts aren't truly resolved at the end, but the film seems very preachy throughout its course on how pointless the war on drugs is. This is what seems like the overall message. Although Traffic comes out to be a good look into a contemporary problem that our society faces, it cannot stand on its own as a great work of motion picture storytelling. When it comes down to it, Traffic simply isn't a very entertaining or involving film.

Rating:
Summary: One word...
Review: Awesome.

If a plot as simple and clear as Traffic can be dim as without direction, motive, or interest by someone, than that someone should just save his/her time and hide in the basement with something more plot oriented.

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional Movie About Our Drug Problem
Review: I'm so glad this film's director, Stephen Soderbergh, got the Oscar over Ridley Scott ("Gladiator") for best director. Here is a film, that you can tell by every frame, done by someone who really understands cutting edge film making. Perhaps his most astonishing achievement is the mood he sets. He does this not by high tech blowouts and blowups but by making this film play in many parts like a home movie, in others like a documentary, and in still others like a "regular" film. His use of the appropriate color to set the mood in a scene is sheer artistry as well. It is amazing how quiet this movie is in so many spots too. Those are also its very best moments. The scenes with the new drug govermental point man's (Douglas's) daughter are stand outs. She is a substance abuser. Much as everyone else is taken with Del Toro's performance (and it was excellent as the Mexian policeman trying to get ahead of the situation), the daughter and Douglas knocked me out even more. Michael Douglas has continued to deliver as an actor decade after decade and I'm sure he helped draw some of the heavy talent to this film. I really felt like legalizing drugs after seeing this movie since it seems we are making so little progress against them in our "war" on them. At least if we took the big money out of their sale, we might level the playing field and have a chance against them. Skip "Scarface" and "Blow" for a far more penetrating look at where we really are vis a vis drugs in the USA.

Rating:
Summary: great movie
Review: i found the story to be very interesting and it kept me engrossed till the end of the movie. however, it should have paid more attention to the demise of the general.

the dvd itself is very clear and the dd 5.1 was only ok as the film did not have so much sound blasting scenes..... but buy it for the story.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but should have been better
Review: It's too bad this movie was done by the same guy that did Erin Brokovich, because it contained a lot of the same Hollywood moralizing, which is different to TV evangalist moralizing in content alone.

That said, Traffic was a good movie - specifically, Del Toro, who was fantastic, but I can't believe some of the dialogue in this movie.

First of all, the 10 second blurb by the kid from "That 70's Show" while he was in the car with Michael Douglas was ridiculous. The argument displayed is that drug dealers are so rampant in the ghettoes because all the white kids come into them and ask for drugs? To further confuse the issue, he maintains that if 1000 black people came into white neighborhoods and wanted to buy drugs, all the white kids would be drug dealers instead of going to law school. I think that's one of the grossest falsehoods about drugs in America today, and further perpetuates the so-called victims of the drug dealing industry, blame it on "the man." And the rant in general sounded like it was written by a rich liberal who has never stepped foot in a ghetto in his life.

Along the same lines, it was also incredibly political to try and make the argument that, drugs should be legal, but we should spend the same anti-drug campaign tax money on drug treatment. Again, let's coddle more "victims" at the expense of the tax payer, whether he likes it or not.

They made good arguments about why drugs should be legal (the hypocrisy of legalizing other drugs like alcohol but not other substances is good, the idea that the cops are working for dealers too, and of course all the deaths involved) and should have kept it at that.

Personally, I think this movie tried to say more than it should have. If it was going to take the stance of legalizing drugs, it should have done that. When you try to show every facet of something like drugs, you run into trouble. The whole Michael Douglass' daughter thing was unnecessary, except to show that most kids experiment with drugs, even rich kids. It was unnecessary to make her a free-base addict who gets pimped out by the "righteous ghetto victims."

So, it was a good movie with strong performances by most of the cast, with the exception of Michael Douglas and his trashy daughter. The script was pretty inventive, with the exception of the two situations I mentioned already, which were very PC and annoying. I give this movie 2 stars, for nothing else but Del Toro's performance.

Rating:
Summary: If you have not seen it, don't!Unless you love a documentary
Review: This show was way over rated by Critics and I'm very dissapointed after watching it. The show is so real that it is so flat. Basically watching some documentary flim is not my idea of a good picture or movie. The actors were great but this show just have not enough impact. All reviews you read should be really considered before you watch this show. Rent it if you must, but don't buy for the sake of people's review. I'm very sure that are people who hated this show after watching it and would agree that they were just as disappointed wasting your time on such a movie.No doubt they may win something for the movie awards but I give full thumbs down to this movie. I give my vote to Moulin Rouge.

Rating:
Summary: A great movie on an important issue
Review: Michael Douglas has produced a great movie about the intricate world of drugs and the violence that it causes in all walks of life. [...] Drug law enforcement creates tremendous moral and ethical problems. Douglas has portrayed it brillinatly. Catherine Zeta Jones is as lovely as ever and acted very well. Douglas is a superb actor. It is a captivating movie.

Rating:
Summary: A pale reflection
Review: Traffic is a film that says one thing and does the opposite. Throughout the film, we are assaulted with the information that there is more attention paid to the supply side of the drug problem and not the demand; a ballsy position to take but it doesn't really take it. Refusing to examine the culture of drugs and the environments that support drug addiction, the film instead limits its focus to the lawmen who foolishly try to choke off the supply, and while we are apprized of the futility of their efforts, we are never truly given an opportunity to see beyond their myopia. Far from challenging the mindset that governs the War on Drugs, it visually and conceptually adopts that point of view even as it verbally assures us that it's doing something more. Traffic tries to bring together multiple points of view in an attempt to draw a portrait of a system instead of a single point of view. So we have two Tijuana cops, including Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) making a drug bust, only to find higher authorities taking it over; something fishy is going on....Then we are introduced to Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), the newly- appointed 'drug czar' in the American government who is told from all sides that he's simply underfunded; in contrast to his mighty position lives his daughter Caroline (Erika Christensen), an honor student who is rebelliously - and dangerously - using the drugs that she encounters in her clique. We have Ray Castro (Luis Guzman) and Montel Gordon (Don Cheadle), two cops who are on the verge of convicting a rich drug lord named Ayala (Steven Bauer), whose wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) had no prior knowledge of his work and finds herself with no support after his arrest; somehow, all of these people are peripherally connected, building to a picture of a law enforcement exercise that has no real hope of succeeding.

Now, having the daughter of the drug czar become an addict and start whoring herself in the ghetto for drug money isn't dramatic; it's contrived in every sense of the word. In the end, Wakefield sits in therapy with his daughter and says he's "listening", a line that resonates so loud, I had to cover my ears. And is Soderbergh trying to make me believe that Helena isn't aware of her husband's career? That doesn't make her sympathetic, it makes her willingly stupid, which explains how she got involved with Ayala in the first place. The main problem with Traffic boils down to a conceptual impasse. Were it actually concerned about the drug problem instead of using the story to preach Liberal tripe (speechifying on behalf of Black ghettos), it might have noticed that police have little to do with the core of the issue. That core lies in the trappings that construct the drug culture, from the way it creates identity for the user to the way that identity transmits itself across the social landscape. While the film does point out the futility of the [current] programs in place to fight the problem, it still adopts their limited thinking when it comes to its source. So as it stands, not only is the War on Drugs a farce, but so are the Hollywood films that trip over their feet in their headlong rush to seem so "important".

Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking and Magical
Review: The movie offers a non-judgemental view about the drug war. It has mind-blowing cinematography, and an excellent cast. Benicio Del Toro (who won an Oscar for his role in this movie) is by far the sexiest man EVER, and a superb actor. He is like the icing on the cake for this spectacular movie.