Wow where to start?? This film absolutely dazzled me when i first saw it. Id already heard about benicio del toro who was at the time one of my favourite actors (usual suspects). Also I was a big fan of Steven Soderbergh so for me this was ideal. Based on a mini series on channel 4 in the UK the story centers around a judge, his daughter, and a Mexican cop. each strand of the story is shot in a different tint of colour. This helps keep up with the story. Its superbly made and deals with drugs extremely well. The scenes involving actual drug taking are sometimes hard to watch but expertly shot. Erika Christensen is an absolute revelation in this movie as the daughter. Real and you find yourself becoming sympathetic towards her character. The star of the show though is Benicio as the cop. Absolute genius from start to finish, Benicio announces he is here to stay with a gigantic mesmerizing performance. Quick mention for Stephen Gaghan the writer whose masterful script keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish One of the best films i have ever seen. I highly recommend it

When watching traffic it evokes memories of more recent and more popular shows like narcos. You get a similar setting and overall feel to it. However traffic is different in that it was made just after the events it depicts took place. This puts it in an interesting place for movies. Because it is set in the time it was filmed and is meant to be that time and makes this clear you are almost taking back in time 18 years. On top of this the movie doesn't use any effects that have aged badly or look inferior now. So over all I would say the movie has aged well and is still very much watchable. Michael Douglas' character could be argued to be the main character so it is important to look at how his arc ended. Specifically his resignation. This was for a few main reasons the main of which being his daughter. He also could not look the American people in the eyes and tell them that their own families are the enemy. I would also attribute the betrayal of general Salazar as a factor as well. This showed him how corrupt everything was and how the only person he thought was helping in Mexico really wasn't. The last important thing to talk about is the elephant in the room of the tone and colour shifts from scene to scene depending on the location. Although a cool concept I don't think it adds to the story and I just see it as a gimmick.

I found that this movie has aged very well from being made in 2000 and still relates well into today's world and on drugs. I think that the movie shows great relevance to what mistakes were made during the "war on drugs" and what is really needed to improve nowadays. I found it intriguing of the reasons why Michael Douglas, the father, had resigned from the job with the government. I think the reasons he did it for was because he saw that the war on drugs couldn't be won though force on the cartels and after a cartel fell a new one would take it's place. Also he didn't want to fight a war on drugs when he would be fighting with his own family in doing so. He wouldn't be able to take the pressure of having his daughter addicted to drugs and be fighting her in fighting the war on drugs. He saw that the way the the government was approaching the problem was all wrong. I also liked the changing of tone when switching between Mexico and America and I feel it really changed the mood of the scene based off of the colour change.

Even though the movie was made in 2000, the subject stills up and really important to be discussed, since until today it's a tabu in society and many people need to be informed about it. Robert Wakefield had a really important post in the film, but he resigned it after seeing that the traffic is really different from what he thought. He realized that after losing his own daughter to the drugs, which was a good student and from a "good" family, so the concept that all the drug addicts was bad people was wrong. Also, he realized that there was no way to stop the traffic, since even if they arrest an important drug dealer, someone else would replace him. Another thing was that, he saw that most of the drug dealers didn't had another choice, so they were doing this for the sake of survival. The difference tones helped the storyline by the fact that is easier to notice where the part is happening.