Stars: Michael Douglas, Miguel Ferrer, Catherine Zeta Jones, James Brolin, Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Albert Finney, Steven Bauer, Benjamin Bratt, Amy Irving, Tomas Milian, Dennis Quaid, Peter Riegert, Luis Guzman, Jacob Vargas, Amy Irving, Clifton Collins Jr., Majandra Delfino, Erika Christensen, Topher Grace, Marisol Padilla Sanchez, Salma Hayek

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Summary: Intertwining tales of America's war on drugs. One story touches on the man appointed to control the programme only to find that his daughter is a heroine addict. Another finds the wife of a jailed drugs baron trying control a business her husband had hidden from her...

Steven Soderbergh followed up his critical and commercial smash ERIN BROCKOVICH with this wildly exhilarating exploration of the complex, multilayered international drug problem. The film tells three seemingly disparate stories that loosely intersect and overlap, unfurling at a frantic, relentless pace. In the first, a well-intentioned Mexican police officer, Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro), comes face-to-face with the hypocrisy and hopelessness of his situation after he learns that his superior, General Salazar (Tomas Milian), isn't the law-abiding officer he claims to be. In the second, Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), a conservative Supreme Court judge from Ohio, takes a position as the president's new drug czar. What he doesn't realize is that his teenage daughter, Caroline (Erika Christensen), is falling prey to the dangerous narcotics that he has been hired to eradicate. In the third section, federal agents Montel Gordon (Don Cheadle) and Ray Castro (Luis Guzman) are baby-sitting Eduardo Ruiz (Miguel Ferrer), a drug smuggler who is about to testify against the wealthy Carlos Ayala (Steven Bauer). When Ayala's pregnant wife, Helena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), learns of her husband's illegal activities, she takes her family's future into her own hands. Soderbergh's bold decision to photograph the film using three strikingly different visual schemes adds even greater punch to TRAFFIC, which stands firmly as one of 2000's most stirring motion picture events.

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Five best friends, 48 hours and a bucketload of ecstasy pills make for an enjoyably lightweight slice of pop-cultural ephemera from debut director Justin Kerrigan. Cardiff is the city, and hardcore partying, clubbing and pubbing is on the menu as Jip (John Simm) and his renegade band of McJobbers clock off and head out for a weekend of debauchery. Among Jip's hedonistic posse are the cheeky cockney drug-dealer Moff (Danny Dyer), the terminally jealous boyfriend Koop (Shaun Parkes) and the bad-boy magnet Lulu (Lorraine Pilkington).

And that's pretty much it. Our heroes meet in a pub, get drunk, take drugs, go to a club, then to a party, then home and then meet up in another pub, just in time for the closing credits. Along the way there's a shamefully lethargic attempt to establish character back-story: Jip is temporarily sexually impotent because his mother's a prostitute; Koop's father is institutionalised; Lulu has nasty boyfriends; and Moff has conservative parents. But generally Human Trafficis happier at the heart of the party, celebrating the intoxication of club culture--which it does in style. Kerrigan pulls out all the formal stops with an energetic melange of jump cuts, slo-mo, and speeded-up "smudge" motion camerawork. There's also direct addresses to camera, fantasy sequences and some self-conscious cameos from DJ Carl Cox and former-drug dealer Howard Marks, author of Mr Nice. Wall-to-wall music from the likes of Fatboy Slim, William Orbit and even Primal Scream help paste over the occasional cracks in the veneer, which include some particularly duff lines ("We're gonna get more spaced than Neil Armstrong ever did!") and a drawn analysis of drug references in Star Wars, a nod to the films of Kevin Smith, such as Clerks, Mallratsand Chasing Amy. And if the whole project already feels dated and empty, well that's because it perfectly captures an essentially 1990s moment, and one gloriously empty weekend. --Kevin Maher

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Deleted Scenes, Theatrical Trailers, B Roll, Soundbites
Year:	2000
Release Date:	October 1, 2007
Runtime:	147 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	E D V 9107
Keywords:	General, Traffic, Drama
Genre:	Drama