Helena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is the beautiful wife of wealthy businessman David (Alec Roberts), who turns out to be a drug kingpin. David is incarcerated without bail, and Helena faces cash flow problems. She fends off passes from lawyer and family friend Arnie (Dennis Quaid), and soon learns the ropes of taking over her husband's cartel.
Federal agents Ray (Luis Guzman) and Montel (Don Cheadle) look for a witness against David, and they find it in Eduardo (Miguel Ferrer), an unpleasant bald man caught in a sting. Eduardo is the target of hitmen, and it is up to Ray and Montel to protect him.
Robert (Michael Douglas) is a middle-aged Federal politician and an acquaintance of the U.S. President, who nominates him as U.S. drug czar. But Robert's ego trip becomes deflated when he fights with wife Barbara (Amy Irving) over the drug abuse of his increasingly addicted hottie teenage daughter Caroline (Erika Christensen).
The film is studded with familiar faces in lesser roles, including Albert Finney, James Brolin, Viola Davis, Peter Riegert, Salma Hayek, and Elaine Kagan.
How others will see it. Traffic proved highly profitable at the box office, with a worldwide gross of four times its budget. Its swagger was aided by the many trophies claimed at various film festivals, including four Oscars: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Supporting Actor (Del Toro, whose unflappable cop was reminiscent of Clint Eastwood in his heyday).
Today at imdb.com, the movie has a high user vote total of 160K and an impressive user rating of 7.7 out of 10. The rating is consistent across all demographics.
How I felt about it. Soderbergh is unquestionably a talented director who knows how to put piece together a movie with an ensemble cast from a kaleidoscope of tense scenes. The problem is that character transitions appear sudden without intermediate scenes that would increase the credible of their actions. Those scenes, with the exception of those of Michael Douglas, are insufficient in number because too many faces must share screen time.
The solution, then, is to reduce the number of subplots. Benicio Del Toro merits his own movie, where he can can betray rogue military officer Salazar at his leisure. Cheadle, Guzman, Ferrer, Zeta-Jones, and Quaid should also get their own movie, which would work better as a comedy.
This would leave the troubled trio of Douglas, Irving, and Christensen in the third and final movie. Breaking Traffic into three films might allow the director to better explain how Zeta-Jones transforms from a pampered and sheltered housewife into a gangster as ruthless as her husband, and why characters make such poor choices that they end up shot, poisoned, or the dazed love slave of a black pimp.
It's true that none of those things happen to Michael Douglas, since he's the movie's biggest star. Still, you think he would know better than to confront criminals in the ghetto, with an unwilling high school student as his backup.