**** 1/2

**

JD: “Traffic” has all the trappings of an Oscar-worthy film — a grandiose plot, big name talent in director Steven Soderbergh (“Erin Brockovich”), actors Michael Douglas (“Wonder Boys”) and Benicio del Toro (“Snatch”), and a two-and-a-half hour running time.The United States’ War on Drugs links the film’s three basic storylines, which intermingle. Mexican police officer Javier Rodriguez (del Toro) and his partner are quickly drawn into Mexico’s own corrupt drug battles while newly-appointed Drug Czar Robert Wakefield (Douglas) struggles with his own daughter’s heroin addiction. At the same time, Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones) must deal with the sudden jailing of her drug-running husband.CB: Combining slick artistic technique, a provocative storyline and compelling characters, “Traffic” stands out in a boring year for the movie industry. Few films made in 2000 challenged moviegoers intellectually. “Traffic” is an intelligent look at drugs in America and Mexico that cuts through the noise of 2000’s mainstream Hollywood fluff and is one of the best films of the year.The subject of illegal drugs has not particularly been a hot topic in the last decade. But in the 1980s, crack was on the rise, and our generation was bombarded by “Just Say No” TV ads and the echo of politicians standing at podiums talking about the “War on Drugs.” “Traffic” succeeds because it breaks through the drug-war rhetoric that was established in the ’80s. No film, until now has taken the theme of drugs and explored it from all sides, pointing out that drug addiction is not just a problem that lurks in the ghetto, but one that reaches everyone, including middle-class teenagers and rich businessmen.JD: “Traffic” presents the idea that both the wealthy and the needy are affected by drugs, a point made concisely in the film’s tagline, “No one gets away clean.” However, I don’t find this revelation to be all that earth-shattering and disturbing. The false perception that the drug problem is mainly restricted to inner-city areas and to the lower class is ignorant. Though no other recent motion picture may have dealt exclusively with the drug problem in the United States, films such as “The Basketball Diaries” and the pathetic “Cruel Intentions” have portrayed upper-class drug problems. And numerous cop shows and action films have made scenes similar to those in the movie — a drug-starved, rich daughter gives up her body in exchange for heroin and a drug bust is partially bungled by miscommunication, for example — cliche and familiar to the public. And any history teacher will be able to speak at length about the injustice and hypocrisy of the government’s War on Drugs. These facts should be nothing new to the public, though the film treats them as shocking, repeatedly beating viewers over the head with depressing images. Two-and-a-half molasses-slow hours of drugged up kids, killings and broken families. CB: Maybe “Traffic” is too long. In fact, length is probably its biggest flaw. The film probably could be shortened by about a half-hour and still convey the same ideas, but it does need to be long because we need to develop relationships with the characters.JD: The problem is, even in the length of the film, these relationships for the most part don’t develop. The characters are cliche — the ignorant parent who won’t accept his child’s drug problem, the double-dealing Mexican cop and questionable foreign military leaders. Del Toro has a strong performance as usual, but even he cannot escape from a character who is obsessed with providing the children of his people with baseball.CB: Like last year’s “Magnolia,” each character in “Traffic” has a connection with the others. A Drug Czar, his heroin-addicted daughter, Mexican and American police officers, a millionaire drug lord — the lives of all these characters intertwine to frame one centralized story. The scenes move from character to character, in a somewhat soap opera-like style, yet they still manage to have major impact. In all, the film remains compelling because it switches focus so often.JD: The only things that managed to keep my attention were Del Toro’s acting and the magnificent cinematography that used filters to differentiate between the three different worlds depicted in “Traffic.” The grainy, washed out texture of the Mexico scenes added realism and grit that is a far cry from the usual crisp, bright images that populate most films.The film also attempts to balance its Edgar-Allan-Poe-like mood with five minutes of happiness at the very end of the film; it seems out of place and as though one of the higher-ups in USA Films thought the movie was too dark and needed something that would leave audiences with happy images and a sense of hope.