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Hey tell me this… why is it movie reviewers seem hooked on
Traffic’s star Michael Douglas and director Steven Soderbergh? I
don’t get it. Douglas put out a movie called Wonder Boys
that the critics loved but the public ignored. That a
Douglas movie could pull in only $19M was inconceivable to those
Hollywood types in the know. The critics, star and movie execs
seemed to think there was no way it could be a flop. The problem
must have been the ads they said. How can the public be so dumb?
In their Douglas induced stupor, the film was re-released. It was
an unheard of move timed to meet the Academy Award calendar. The
public hated the movie, but the Hollywood insiders figured their
brethren in the Academy would love it, and they were right -
Wonder Boys is nominated for 3 Oscars in 2001 including Best Writing.
That won’t change the movie - Wonder Boys is still unremarkable - as
is Traffic.
Traffic is one
of those "docu-dramas" that is supposed to give us the grittiness of
real life, but provide an absorbing story line. Traffic
actually provides three simple story lines related to the US and
Mexico’s attempts at eliminating drug traffic across the border.
For the most part the grittiness is provided by over exposing the film
and having the camera operators use hand held cameras whenever the
film’s setting is Mexico. One story line follows the
misadventures of an amoral and somewhat inept Mexican cop played by the
incredibly unattractive Benicio Del Toro. Another story involves
the very pregnant Catherine Zeta-Jones as the not-so-innocent wife of a
drug lord. The film tries weakly to make us believe she thought
all of her hubby’s wealth came from legitimate business operations.
When she finds out the unfashionable truth, she is shocked for about 10
minutes before she becomes even more ruthless then her husband.
This rapid conversion was too unbelievable for me.
The third story
line is even weaker. We are supposed to believe that Michael
Douglas, a perceptive and tireless judge who is appointed US drug czar,
can tackle the world’s problems but doesn’t even see the problems in
his own home. Wow what an exciting and inventive concept -- a
powerful man who can’t control his own family life. Excuse me
while I yawn.
So why is this
film so highly rated by the critics? Maybe it is because of
director Steven Soderbergh. He did direct the Academy Award
nominated Erin Brockovich. The critics say his great talents
forced lead Julia Roberts out of yet another of her glamorous movie star
role into the meaty real world part of Brockovich. But I’m not a
fan of that film either. Sorry to tell you this, but Brockovich
was simply a reworking of Roberts’ Pretty Woman character, and to me
putting such a homely person as Roberts in any glamorous role is a
credibility stretch for the moviegoer. In Traffic it seems that
Soderbergh's big contribution was moving from one story to the other in
a somewhat understandable manner. But maybe it is the film editor
who deserves the credit here to make sense out of three separate movies.
Traffic to me was like three dull episodes of Dragnet interlaced like a
deck of shuffled cards.
But finally I
feel the fatal flaw in the movie is ego. When directors and stars
think their work is so important that every frame is filled with such
art and meaning that it can’t be cut, it usually ends up poorly.
At 147 minutes, Traffic is way too long for the meager content.
I’d rather sit in real traffic that long listening to some good CD’s
than sit through this pedestrian film again.
--
Pappy
( 1 1/2 out of 4 pops )
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