Traffic (2000 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Traffic | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical poster |
|
| Directed by | Steven Soderbergh |
| Produced by | Edward Zwick Marshall Herskovitz Laura Bickford |
| Written by | Stephen Gaghan |
| Starring | Michael Douglas Benicio del Toro Don Cheadle Catherine Zeta-Jones Dennis Quaid |
| Music by | Cliff Martinez |
| Cinematography | Steven Soderbergh |
| Editing by | Stephen Mirrione |
| Distributed by | USA Films |
| Release date(s) | December 27, 2000 (USA, limited) January 5, 2001 (USA, wide) |
| Running time | 147 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Spanish |
| Budget | $46,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $207,515,725 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Traffic is a 2000 crime drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh. It explores the intricacies of the illegal drug trade from a number of perspectives: a user, an enforcer, a politician and a trafficker, whose lives affect each other even though they do not meet. The film is an adaptation of the British Channel 4 television series Traffik. In 2004, USA Network ran a miniseries — also called Traffic — based on the movie.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
[edit] Structure
Traffic could be considered in a category of films that critic Alissa Quart calls 'hyperlink movies', in which multiple stories take place, each affecting the other in ways that characters are unaware of, all the while using radically different aesthetic and cinematics techniques to define the mise en scène of each storyline.
[edit] Synopsis
The film begins in Mexico, where police officer Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez (Benicio del Toro) and his partner, Manolo, stop a drug transport and arrest the couriers. Their arrest is interrupted by General Salazar (Tomas Milian), a high-ranking Mexican official. The general, who announces he wants to "wipe out the Tijuana Cartel," decides to hire Javier, a rare honest cop in Mexico. Javier is instructed to locate and apprehend Frankie Flowers (Clifton Collins, Jr.) — a notorious hit man for the Tijuana Obregón Drug Cartel.
Meanwhile, Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), a conservative Ohio Judge, is appointed to be head of the President's Office of National Drug Control, taking the title of Drug Czar. Wakefield is warned by his predecessor and several influential politicians that the war on drugs is unwinnable and that he should only consider his position as the Drug Czar as a resume building experience. Unbeknownst to Robert, his honor student daughter who lives in the Cincinnati suburbs, Caroline (Erika Christensen), is using heroin and falls victim to drug addiction when she is introduced to chasing the dragon by her boyfriend, Seth (Topher Grace). She and Seth are arrested when another student at her high school overdoses on drugs and they try to dump him anonymously at a nearby hospital. Robert is further flabbergasted when he realises that his wife Caroline (Amy Irving) has known about their daughter's involvement with drugs for over six months.
In the third main story, which is set in San Diego, an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation — led by Montel Gordon (Don Cheadle) and Ray Castro (Luis Guzmán), arrest the high-stakes dealer posing as a fisherman, Eduardo Ruiz (Miguel Ferrer). In the process, Ruiz is hospitalized and decides to risk the dangerous road to immunity by giving up his boss: drug lord Carlos Ayala (Steven Bauer), the biggest distributor for the Óbregon brothers in the U.S. Ayala is prosecuted by the high profile Ben Williams (James Pickens, Jr.), a tough prosecutor hand selected by Robert Wakefield who is hoping to send a message to the Mexican drug organizations through a conviction against Ayala.
Flowers is tortured horrifically, much to the uneasiness of straight-shooting Javier, and eventually gives Salazar the names of several important members of the Óbregon Drug Cartel, who are arrested in a large effort by police and army soldiers. Javier and Salazar's efforts start to cripple the Óbregon brothers cocaine outfit, but Javier soon discovers that Salazar is, in fact, a pawn for the Juárez Cartel, the rival of the Óbregon brothers. The entire Mexican anti-drug campaign is a fraud, as Salazar is wiping out one cartel, not out of duty, but rather because he has aligned himself with another cartel for profit.
Robert, realizing that his daughter is a drug addict, finds himself in a tough spot, caught between his demanding new position and his worrisome family life. He delves into his job taking more of an interest in rehabilitation of drug users due to his current family situation. When he heads to Mexico to see the "front lines up close", he is encouraged by the successful efforts of Salazar hurting the Óbregon brothers (not knowing of the general's ruse and secret motivation). When he returns to Ohio, Robert learns that his efforts to see Caroline rehabilitated have failed, and she escaped into the city where no one knows her location. Secretly, she's forced to prostitute herself and rob her parents to procure money for drugs.
While the trial against Carlos Ayala begins, Carlos' wife, Helena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who has only recently learned of his true profession, wants their family life to go on as always. She and her son are soon threatened by thugs of the Óbregon brothers. With her husband facing life imprisonment and death threats against her only child, she decides to make a desperate move and hire Flowers to assassinate Eduardo Ruiz. She knows that killing Ruiz will effectively end the trial nolle prosequi.
Javier's partner, Manolo, who has also learned of General Salazar's lies, sells the information to the Óbregon Cartel, but is killed for his betrayal. Javier, who can no longer stomach working for Salazar, decides to cut a deal with the only non-corrupt organization he has access to — the Federal government of the United States and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In exchange for his testimony, Javier requests electricity in his neighborhood, so that kids can play baseball at night rather than be tempted by street gangs and crime. General Salazar's secrets are revealed to the public; he is arrested and tortured to death shortly after.
Robert begins a search for his daughter, dragging along Seth, who fears they will be murdered for meddling in such dangerous business. After being threatened and nearly killed by a drug dealer, Robert regains his resolve and breaks into a seedy hotel room in Cincinnati, finding a semi-conscious Caroline prostituting herself to an older man. Robert comforts her and breaks down in tears, while Seth quietly leaves. He returns to Washington, D.C., to give his prepared speech on a "10-point plan" to combat the war on drugs. In the middle of the speech, he falters, then tells the press that on a war on drugs is a war against many of our own family members, which he cannot endorse. He quits his job and heads home, satisfied with his choice to quit.
Flowers's assassination attempt on Ruiz fails, when he himself is assassinated for his betrayal, by a sniper working for the Óbregon Cartel. Helena, knowing that Ruiz is soon to testify, then makes a deal with Juan Óbregon (Benjamin Bratt), lord of the drug cartel, who forgives the debt of the Ayala family and murders Ruiz. Carlos Ayala is released, much to the discomfort of Montel Gordon, who lost his partner, Castro, when Frankie tried to assassinate Ruiz with a car bomb. Soon after, Montel bursts into the Ayala residence and illegally plants a microphone under one of the tables, before being kicked out. Ayala also orders the murder of his good friend (Dennis Quaid), who was suspected of betrayal.
Robert and Caroline begin to go to Narcotics Anonymous meetings with their daughter, to support her and everyone else there.
Javier takes the media to Mexico and explains what he can about the widespread corruption in the police force and army. The film concludes with him watching some Mexican children playing baseball at night, at their new stadium.
[edit] Cast and characters
| Actor | Role | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Benicio del Toro | Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez | Mexican Police Officer |
| Jacob Vargas | Manolo Sanchez | Javier Rodriguez's Partner |
| Michael Douglas | Robert Wakefield | Head of the President's anti-drug campaign |
| Amy Irving | Barbara Wakefield | Robert Wakefield's wife |
| Erika Christensen | Caroline Wakefield | The Wakefield's teenage daughter |
| Corey Spears | Bowman | A student at Caroline's school |
| Catherine Zeta-Jones | Helena Ayala | Carlos Ayala's wife |
| Dennis Quaid | Arnie Metzger | Helen Ayala's lawyer and Carlos's partner |
| Steven Bauer | Carlos Ayala | Obrégon brothers distributor |
| Clifton Collins Jr. | Francisco Flores | Obrégon Cartel assassin |
| Topher Grace | Seth Abrahams | Caroline Wakefield's boyfriend |
| Don Cheadle | Montel Gordon | DEA Agent |
| Luis Guzmán | Ray Castro | Montel Gordon's partner |
| Alec Roberts | David Ayala | Carlos and Helenas 5-year old son |
| Miguel Ferrer | Eduardo Ruiz | Ayala distributor |
| D. W. Moffett | Jeff Sheridan | Assistant to Robert Wakefield |
| Tomas Milian | General Arturo Salazar | Head of Mexican Drug Police |
| Marisol Padilla Sánchez | Ana Sanchez | Manolo Sanchez's wife |
| Peter Riegert | Michael Adler | Carlos Ayala's Attorney |
| James Pickens Jr. | Ben Williams | Ayala prosecutor |
| Benjamin Bratt | Juan Obregón | Lord of Obregón Drug Cartel |
| Jsu Garcia | Pablo Obregón | One of the Obregón brothers |
| Yul Vazquez | El Tigrillo | Obregón Cartel Assassin |
| James Brolin | General Ralph Landry | Robert's predecessor |
| Joel Torres | Porfirio Madrigal | A rival of the Obregón brothers |
| Salma Hayek | Rosario | Madrigal's mistress |
[edit] Relationship to factual events
Some aspects of the plotline are based on real-life events. The character General Arturo Salazar is closely modeled after disgraced Mexican drug czar General Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, who was secretly on the payroll of the Juarez Cartel. The Obregón Cartel is similarly modeled after the Tijuana Cartel.
[edit] Development
Steven Soderbergh had been interested in making a film about the drug wars for some time but did not want to make one about addicts.[1] Producer Laura Bickford got the rights to the United Kingdom mini-series Traffik and liked its structure. Soderbergh had seen it in 1990.[2] They started looking for a screenwriter and read a script by Stephen Gaghan entitled Havoc about upper-class white kids in Palisades High School doing drugs and involved with gangs.[3] Soderbergh approached Gaghan to work on his film, however, he was already working for producer/director Ed Zwick. Bickford and Soderbergh approached Zwick who agreed to merge the two projects and come aboard as a producer.[1]
Traffic was originally going to be made at 20th Century Fox but it was put into turnaround unless actor Harrison Ford agreed to star. When the actor showed interest in the film this in turn renewed the studio's interest in it.[4] Fox CEO Bill Mechanic championed the film but he left by the time the first draft was finished and this also caused it to go into turnaround.[5] Mechanic also wanted to make some changes to the script but Soderbergh disagreed[6] and decided to take the film to all other major studios who turned them all down because they were scared of a three-hour films about drugs, according to Gaghan.[3] USA Films wanted to do it from the first time Soderbergh approached them.[5] They provided the filmmakers with $46 million budget, a considerable increase from the $25 million that Fox offered.[6]
[edit] Screenplay
Soderbergh had "conceptual discussions" with Gaghan while he was shooting The Limey in October 1998 and they finished the outline before he went off to shoot Erin Brockovich.[1] After Soderbergh was finished with that film, Gaghan had written a first draft in six weeks that was 165 pages long.[3] After the film was greenlit, Soderbergh and Gaghan met two separate times for three days working all day reformatting the script.[3] The draft they shot with had 163 pages with 135 speaking parts and featured seven cities.[1] The film shortens the storyline of the original mini-series, a major character arc, that of a farmer, is taken out, and the Pakistani plotline is replaced with one set in Mexico.[2]
[edit] Casting
Harrison Ford was initially considered for the role of drug czar Judge Robert Wakefield in January 2000 but would have had to take a significant cut in his usual $20 million salary.[7] Ford met with Soderbergh to flesh out the character and Gaghan agreed to rework the role, adding several scenes that ended up in the finished film. On February 20, Ford turned down the role and the filmmakers brought it back to Michael Douglas who had turned down an earlier draft. He liked Ford's changes and agreed to star which helped greenlight the project.[7] Gaghan believes that Ford turned the role because he wanted to "reconnect with his action fans".[3]
The filmmakers sent out letter to many politicians, both Democrat and Republican. The ones that showed up, including U.S. Senator Harry Reid, playing himself, as do Senators Barbara Boxer, Orrin Hatch, Charles Grassley, Don Nickles, and Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, were filmed in a scene that was entirely improvised.[2]
[edit] Pre-production
After Fox dropped the film and USA Films was interested, Soderbergh paid for Pre-Production with his own money.[3] USA Films agreed to give him final cut on Traffic and when any Mexican characters spoke to each other, it would be in Spanish.[7] However, this meant that almost all of Benicio del Toro's dialogue would be subtitled. Once the studio realized this they suggested that his scenes be shot in both English and Spanish.[7] Del Toro was worried that some other actor would be brought in and re-record his dialogue in English after working hard to master Mexican inflections and improve his Spanish vocabulary. Del Toro remembers, "Can you imagine? You do the whole movie, bust your butt to get it as realistic as possible, and someone dubs your voice? I said, 'No way. Over my dead body.' Steven was like, 'Don't worry. It's not gonna happen.'"[7] The director fought for subtitles for the Mexico scenes arguing that if the characters did not speak Spanish, the film would have no integrity and demonstrated what he described as the "impenetrability of another culture".[2]
The filmmakers went to the DEA and U.S. Customs early on with the script and told them that they were trying to present as detailed and accurate a picture of the current drug war as possible.[2] The DEA and Customs pointed out inaccuracies in the script and gave them access but did not try to influence the content of the script.[2] Soderbergh cites the influence of the films of Richard Lester and Jean-Luc Godard and he spent a lot of time analyzing The Battle of Algiers and Z, which, according to the director, had the feeling that the footage was caught and not staged.[5] He was also inspired by Alan J. Pakula's film All the President's Men because he admired its ability to tackle serious issues while also being entertaining.[8] In the opening credits of his film, Soderbergh tried to replicate the typeface from All the President's Men and also the placement on-screen - bottom left-hand corner. Analyzing this film helped the director deal with the large cast and working in many different locations for Traffic.[8]
[edit] Principal photography
Half of the first day's footage came out overexposed and unusable.[7] Before the financiers or studio bosses knew about the problem, Soderbergh was already doing reshoots. The insurers made him agree that any further lensing mishaps resulting in additional shooting would come out of the director's own pocket.[7] Soderbergh shot in cities on a 54-day schedule and came in $2 million under budget.[1] The director operated the camera himself in an effort to "get as close to the movie as I can", and to eliminate the distance between the actors and himself.[1] Soderbergh drew inspiration from the cinema verite style of Ken Loach's films, studying the framing of scenes, the distance of the camera to the actors, lens length, and the tightness of eyelines depending on the position of a character. Soderbergh remembers, "I noticed that there's a space that's in violate, that if you get within something, you cross the edge into a more theatrical aesthetic as opposed to a documentary aesthetic".[1] Most of the day was spent shooting because a lot of the film was shot with available light.[5]
For the hand-held camera footage, Soderbergh used Millennium XLs that were smaller and lighter than previous cameras and allowed him to go anywhere with it.[1] In order to tell the three stories apart, he adopted a distinctive look for each. For Robert Wakefield's story, Soderberg used tungsten film with no filter for a cold, monochrome blue feel.[1] For Helena Ayala's story, Soderbergh used diffusion filters, flashing the film, overexposing it for a warmer feel. For Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez's story, the director used tobacco filters and a 45-degree shutter angle whenever possible to produce a strobe-like sharp feel.[1] Then, he took the entire film through an Ektachrome step which increased the contrast and grain significantly.[1] He wanted to have different looks for each story because the audience had to keep track of many characters and absorb a lot of information and he did not want them to have to figure out which story they were watching.[2]
Benicio del Toro had significant input into certain parts of the film. For example, he suggested a simpler, more concise way of depicting his character kidnapping Frankie Flowers that Soderbergh ended up using.[2] The director cut out a scene where Robert Wakefield smokes crack after finding it in his daughter's bedroom close to actually shooting the scene. After rehearsing said scene with the actors, he felt that the character would not do it and after consulting with Gaghan, the screenwriter agreed.[9]
[edit] Post-production
The first cut of Traffic ran three hours and ten minutes.[1] Soderbergh cut it down to two hours and twenty minutes. Early on, there was some concern that the film might get an NC-17 rating and he was prepared to release it with that rating but the Motion Pictures Association of America gave it an R.[1]
[edit] Reception
Traffic was given a limited release on December 27, 2000 in four theaters where it grossed USD $184,725 on its opening weekend. It was given a wide release on January 5, 2001 in 1,510 theaters where it grossed $15.5 million on its opening weekend. The film would make $124.1 million in North America and $83.4 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $207.5 million, well above its estimated $48 million budget.[10]
In addition to strong box office receipts, Traffic was very well-received critically. It has a 92% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 86 metascore on Metacritic. In his review for the New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "Traffic marks him definitively as an enormous talent, one who never lets us guess what he's going to do next. The promise of Sex, Lies, and Videotape has been fulfilled".[11] Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "The movie is powerful precisely because it doesn't preach. It is so restrained that at one moment--the judge's final speech--I wanted one more sentence, making a point, but the movie lets us supply that thought for ourselves".[12] Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A" rating and praised Benicio Del Toro's performance, calling it, "haunting in his understatement, becomes the film's quietly awakening moral center".[13] In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, who based this on a British television miniseries of the same name, have created an often exhilarating, soup-to-nuts exposé of the world's most lucrative trade".[14] However, Richard Schickel, in his review for Time, wrote, "there is a possibly predictable downside to this multiplicity of story lines: they keep interrupting one another. Just as you get interested in one, Stephen Gaghan's script, inspired by a British mini-series, jerks you away to another".[15]
[edit] Awards
The film won Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Picture, but did not win.
Benicio del Toro is one of only five actors to have won an Academy Award for a part spoken mainly in a foreign language (most of del Toro's dialogue is in Spanish). Sophia Loren, Robert De Niro, Roberto Benigni and Marion Cotillard are the other four.
At the Golden Globe Awards, Traffic won Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, and Best Screenplay.
The New York Film Critics Circle named Traffic as the Best Film of the Year and Soderbergh as Best Director.[2]
[edit] See also
- Hyperlink cinema - the film style of using multiple inter-connected story lines.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Hope, Darrell. "The Traffic Report with Steven Soderbergh", DGA Magazine, January 2001. Retrieved on 2008-05-25.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Lemons, Stephen. "Steven Soderbergh", Salon.com, December 20, 2000. Retrieved on 2008-05-25.
- ^ a b c d e f Divine, Christian. "Pushing Words", Creative Screenwriting, January/February 2001, pp. 57.
- ^ Ascher-Walsh, Rebecca. "Red Light, Green Light", Entertainment Weekly, February 15, 2000. Retrieved on 2008-05-25.
- ^ a b c d Kaufman, Anthony. "INTERVIEW: Man of the Year, Steven Soderbergh Traffics in Success", indieWIRE, January 3, 2001. Retrieved on 2008-05-25.
- ^ a b Dargis, Manohla. "Go! Go! Go!", L.A. Weekly, December 26, 2000. Retrieved on 2008-05-25.
- ^ a b c d e f g Daly, Steve. "Dope & Glory", Entertainment Weekly, March 2, 2001. Retrieved on 2008-05-25.
- ^ a b Lyman, Rick. "Follow the Muse: Inspiration to Balance Lofty and Light", New York Times, February 16, 2001.
- ^ Divine, Christian. "Traffic Jammin'", Creative Screenwriting, January/February 2001, pp. 58.
- ^ "Traffic", Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2008-05-07.
- ^ Sarris, Andrew. "Soderbergh, on Border Patrol, Dissects the Drug Economy", New York Observer, December 24, 2000. Retrieved on 2008-05-07.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "Traffic", Chicago Sun-Times, January 1, 2001. Retrieved on 2008-05-07.
- ^ Gleiberman, Owen. "The High Drama", Entertainment Weekly, January 5, 2001. Retrieved on 2008-05-07.
- ^ Howe, Desson. "Green Light for Traffic", Washington Post, January 5, 2001. Retrieved on 2008-05-07.
- ^ Schickel, Richard. "Caution: Gridlock Ahead", Time, December 31, 2000. Retrieved on 2008-05-07.
[edit] External links
- Traffic at the Internet Movie Database
- Traffic at Allmovie
- Traffic at Rotten Tomatoes
- Traffic at Metacritic
- Traffic at Box Office Mojo
- Criterion Collection essay by Manohla Dargis
- Criterion Collection essay by Larry Blake
|
|||||
