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Show ee = ) arama ale rele aS ing in aa aes ol ae WASATCH COUNTY COURIER _ JANUARY 17, 2001 Wiens. ae f ; B3 STOREWIDE CLEARANCEOF ALL matographer for Traffic, may have intended his blanched palette for the Mexican sequences to suggest how KKK STARS DIRECTED BY STEVEN SODERBERGH. _ WRITTEN BY STEPHEN GAGHAN. STARRING MICHAEL DOUGLAS, BENICIO DEL TORO, DON CHEADLE , LUIS GUZMAN, ERIKA — CHRISTENSEN, DENNIS QUAID, CATHERINE ZETA-JONES AND AMY.IRVING. Review by Paul Swenson teven Soderbergh’s Traffic such a sprawling, solemn enter- people in this country see Mexico as a vast burned-over district, decimated by drugs. The look is an interesting risk by an adventurous director, but its downside is that audiences may attribute what feels like condescension to the filmmakers. | Of all the interwoven storylines, two are most affecting: Newly-appointed U.S. Drug Czar Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), an ex- judge, Barbara (Amy and his wife Irving), are in denial Fe prise that in its haste to cover ground many Seta Traffic | Among importers, the users, exporters, cops, politicians and fami-— Christensen). Two agents (Luiz Guzman and Don Cheadle) are in lies who feed on and are frustrated by permanent stakeout outside the palatial the narcotics trade, the movie’s lives and storylines — meant to interlock estate here — sometimes end viewers instead. isolate.and dead- The picture has a huge and accomplished cast, employs its own visual schema that overexposes its south-of the-border footage in bleached-out sepia tones (while bathing its stateside scenes in deep, rich blues and golds), and jumps us around to dozens of locales from Tijuana to Washington D.C. to San. Diego. It’s an important film whose message occasionally suffers from its own sense of -_selfimportance ‘Hailed as one of a flurry of end-ofthe-year of pregnant and privileged Helena Ayala, whose elite businessman ‘husband Carlos (Steven Bauer) is incarcerated on suspicion of heroin smuggling. Meanwhile, the DEA’s major witness against Ayala, Eduardo Ruiz (Miguel Ferrer), is under surveillance as a target for assassination. In addition, two discouraged Mexican cops, Javier Rodriguez (Benacio Del Toro) and Ray Castro (Jacob Vargas) patrol the border, while Mexican General Arturo Salazar (Tomas Millan) - — who appears to be his counry s hope for severing the drug supply line —.tortures his informers, and main- year wasn’t all tedium tains his own roots in the drug culture. _ » Wide the and trash, Tvaffic has an - Douglas movies that would wish to persuade us that last ambitious scope and an edgy vision, contrasting its plush decadence with its periodic violence. Buttoned. -up and bottomed out: Michael Douglas as Robert Wakefield in Traffic. rejected by some as “too depressing,” it compelling character thetic, he is such a_ stereotypical, but- achieves an almost buoyant level of honesty by refusing to turn away from but CHECK OUT OUR MANY SELECTIONS! - is somewhat sympa- However it’s not nearly as fresh or as personal as Soderbergh’s _ other 2000 film, Evin Brockovich (which manages to be human and hard-hitting at the same time), and it doesn’t have the punch or the insight of Requiem for a Dream, which focuses exclusively on addicts. It’s ironic that while Requiem is its sad a Drug ge (Erika Enforcement Administration a Drugs, it sometimes loses cohesion. about the ugly little crack cocaine addic- ~ tion of their teen-age daughter Caroline oN in exposing the futility of the War on aha BE ‘i ee characters, whereas Traffic sometimes gets stalled in its own bitter cynicism. Nonetheless, Soderbergh should toned- HD,. cratic - bureau- symbol of absent American parenthood that his portrayal loses power because we've seen it all before. _ | When Wakefield eventually leaves his desk to hatint inner city streets to search for his missing child — who has run from her rehab program — or when the Wakefields are later pictured among other proud parents at a rehab graduation, the movie’s pathetic pursuit of a few crumbs of expiation from its bleak. scenario seems too flat and obvious. COMPLETE | HOME OFFICE The film’s most painful yet most. honest moments are those when Christensen’s Caroline Wakefield embraces her own dreamy degradabe credited for his unwillingness to pull ideological punches. Traffic suggests - tion, welcoming the needle’s penetration — feeling safe in the arms of her _ that the U.S. Government, Mexico’s corrupt politicians, and both countries’ | clean-cut, intelligent and yet clueless boyfriend, then later in a series of military officials, and law enforcement anonymously wretched rooms with agencies have strung along a Jess than other lovers/ exploiters. demanding public by paying more Similarly, Zeta-Jones’s Helena Avala attention to supply and less attention to makes a frightening but convincing transdemand in addressing the drug plague. formation—from a high-living socialite This allows Americans to feel indigsoccer mom, who fails to care what her nant and selfrighteous in blaming peohusband is up to until it’s too late, to an ple in foreign climes for growing and amoral and audacious interloper, willing shipping deadly and illegal products to strike a blood bargain with her husthat harbor in the veins and arteries of band’s bosses to save her lifestyle. _ their youth. They may then i ignore per- Money, drugs, addiction and denial sonal responsibility for assessing the underlying, unfulfilled needs that per- — it’s a potent combination that most suade kids in every economic circum- Americans seem willing to allow their stance to turn to drugs. ~ Soderbergh, who was his own cine- ‘government to worry about. After all, it only affects other people — right? ean TEE ry rye lS AS (435) 654-1817. 4&SO North Nain ° Heber City surements i Sema |