“Traffic” feels like a movie that time forgot, which is crazy considering it won a bunch of Oscars, including a Best Director win for Steven Soderbergh. Maybe people think the film’s “war on drugs” theme is dated, and maybe it is. But having recently re-watched the film for the first time in years, I can attest that it’s a solid, crackling, excellent coming-of-age drama. Adapted from a British TV series, “Traffic” is a sprawling narrative that follows several characters and their connections to the illegal drug trade. Michael Douglas is a hard-core politician whose daughter becomes addicted to methamphetamine, Benicio del Toro (in an Oscar-winning role) is a Mexican cop, Catherine Zeta-Jones is a pregnant woman who finds herself involved in dirty deeds after discovering her husband is a drug kingpin. Soderberg and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan weave these stories in and out, creating one grand narrative that highlights not only the insidiousness of drug addiction but also the helplessness of government agencies to actually do anything about it.
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