Saturday, August 04, 2001

Traffic (2000)

Well, I'm sitting down to watch Traffic; mainly because it has Michael Douglas in it, partly because it's supposed to be a decent movie about the drug war. Overall, I though it was a good film, definitely not a bad film, but I can see that some people would have a problem with the pacing or the distracting camera & editing work (which is not bad, just different). It's not something you watch if you want to see lots of guns and violence; but it's not a mellow movie either ... the car bomb scene is mellow violence, you see the explosion but all you hear is a muffle thump over the background music even though the principle actor in that scene is standing only yards away. I liked the director's choice to limit the amount of gore that I was expecting, the violence is there, but it more often takes place off screen or in a quick edit. One thing that I noticed about the film was the low level of dialogue; most of this film is thinking about what went before and what might be going through the characters' minds as they move through the current scene. It's definitely a movie that you need to approach with an open, calm mind; I could see watching this with a bunch of friends and then discussing it afterwards. I wouldn't call the plot strong, it's more of a trio of viginettes that somewhat impact on one another; a window into the drug interdiction world, it flows just like real life (real life doesn't have a building creshendo to a climax after which everyone lives hapily ever after) with ups and down and paths not taken and paths yet to be taken.

posted by Wuphon's at 8:10 PM