 "1.5 stars for a terrible movie!" | 2009-08-16 |
| - Reviewed By User: AP1NKNOSOKDEV |
I just didn't see what was so good about this movie, I mean the acting was great and the cast was perfect but the entire storyline has no connections at all except their all drug related, it was constantly jumping from story to another 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.
Why on earth did this movie won 4 addademy awards? I don't know, but it really didn't deserve it at all.
I regret buying this movie and im glad I got rid of it. |
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 "Unique Take On The Border Drug War" | 2009-06-06 |
| - Reviewed By ccthemovieman |
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.
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 "Should be re-released with cut scenes re-inserted." | 2009-01-02 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2ZYTFMXAXERK2 |
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)
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| "The drug traffic as it really is and from all three perspectives" | 2008-08-31 |
| - Reviewed By 71603522 |
| 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. br / 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.br / 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. br / 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. br / 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. br / 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.br / |
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 "Buy the DVD Version Instead" | 2008-03-12 |
| - Reviewed By collegeparksbest |
I liked this movie. The cast was pretty good and the acting and story were also strong.
The HD DVD sucks royally. The video quality is like a regular DVD. I saw this using an HDMI connection on a 1080 HDTV on which other HD DVDs have looked much better. High definition discs are still new and I expect it will take some time to improve the technology, but this movie is an exact replica of the DVD version.
I bought this at Best Buy, on sale for almost the same price of the regular DVD. And it is definitely worth less than the regular DVD because I could at least watch a DVD on my blu-ray player when they become somewhat affordable in the distant future. This is why I like combo formats better than regular HD DVDs. |
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 "A Movie As Important As It Is Excellent" | 2007-09-29 |
| - Reviewed By kevintrod |
While people are currently complaining that we are fighting a foreign war that we have no way of winning, there is in fact a homeland war that is looking just as grim that gets far less media attention. That war is the war on drugs, a war that is examined in all different angles in Steven Soderbergh's exceptionally brilliant "Traffic." "Traffic" covers drugs from beginning to end. While "Crash" and "Babel" may have ultimately brought the craft of hyperlink storytelling to popularity, it was "Traffic" that originally perfected the art of telling a single narrative through different perspectives. We get to see the drugs shipped from Mexico to America, we get to see the drug dealers explain their side of the story, we get to see the congressmen who are attempting to fight drugs, and we finally get to see teenagers who use the drugs themselves.
It's mind boggling to see how much of an impact drugs really have on our culture and on the lives of our fellow man. Soderbergh filmed "Traffic" on a digital camera of things, which gives the movie the look of a home video. The color tones also differ from character to character, demonstrating the mood they're currently in. For example, a cop in Mexico is surrounded in a glow of orange, giving the viewer a feeling of what viewing Mexico for the first time is like. Then we look through the eyes of a teenage girl who is taking drugs, and the world looks hazy and blue, except for light which seems to be brighter then it should be. It's a great stylistic choice, one that benefits the film and makes it look as fresh and inventive today as it did seven years ago. But my goodness, I must be out of my mind.
I haven't even discussed the storyline with you yet, and here I am jumping into the art of the film making. I think this is the first (as my brother calls them) "talking drama" film I actually did this on. And now that I've dipped in with a small analyst of the film making, I want to point out that the acting is excellent. Michael Douglas as Congressman Robert Wakefield particularly stands out as the congressman who goes to congress meetings pitching his plans to enforce the war on drugs, only to run into a conflict when he discovers his daughter Caroline (Erika Christensen) is a drug addict herself. Benicio del Toro may have walked away with the Oscar for his portrayal of the conflicted Mexican cop Javier Rodriguez, but in my eyes Michael Douglas steals this movie right out from all the other actors.
Though I must admit, Don Cheadle comes dangerously close as Montel Gordon, a man who has captured a key witness who's testimony could send a major drug lord to jail for life. His witness singles out the husband of Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who is shocked to discover this secret life her husband has been living (which has supplied the income she never really questioned before), but feels compelled to get involved in the business after her son is threatened by another drug lord. All of these stories could be their own movie, yet "Traffic" roles them all into one very effectively. These storylines contribute to each other so beautifully, that it's like watching a well-made documentary (which, ironically, is also what the film looks like thanks to Soderbergh's digital camera technique).
"Traffic" caused considerable amount of controversy when it was nominated for five Academy Awards. Of the five "Traffic" took home four, including Oscars for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (I guess I should also mention it won for Best Editing, seeing as how sub-par editing could have easily killed this film). The only Oscar it did not win was Best Picture, which went to Ridley Scott's "Gladiator." Yes, I know people tend to accuse the Academy Awards for taking themselves too seriously, but at least this year the Academy members shut their brains off and gave the Best Picture award to one of those brainless action movies average movie goers constantly (and ignorantly) claim are better then Oscar winning films like "Casablanca" and "Titanic."
Even if you LIKED "Gladiator" there's no denying that "Gladiators" film quality is certainly not on the same level as "Traffics" is, and it's certainly not as memorable. Yeah, I know the two films are different, and thus should be exempt from comparison, but seeing as how both films are actually two and a half hours long, I find it interesting when people compliment "Traffic" for feeling "half as long" as it's advertised, where with "Gladiator" I've never heard people comment on the film feeling short then it really is. People who do watch "Traffic" compliment the unique style of filming in the movie, but with "Gladiator" they only seem interested that the movie looked cool. "Traffic" is a classic film that is just as relevant today as it was seven years ago. It's still daring today, it's still important today, and it's still just as fascinating today. Dare I say it, "Traffic" losing Best Picture was the biggest snub since the snubbing of "Raging Bull."
Rating: **** and a half stars |
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