Traffic (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

This video was shipped quickly and arrived in good condition. This video is an enjoyable addition to my video collection! I am always impressed by the quality of the Criterion Collection versions of these films.

I’ve probably seen this movie at least 5 times over the years. Benecio del Torro is awesome as is Don Cheadle and the rest of cast. Watch it all in one setting and you’ll love it.

When a man has a daughter, he holds her extremly high, higher than anything else. But when she becomes defiled by drugs, what can be worse a father would ask? She can become a prostitute for her drug use... A well means of a family with an easy high 6 figures a year family, watches their only daughter become hooked on Meth, where they put her in a Re-Hab. But the beautiful young blonde sneaks off and without any money, sells herself to a Black African American that is slinging dope theu an 4 Square Electical Box Blank Cover over his front door. They show her laying naked and doing drugs as he climbs on top of her and uses her again and again. when the drug dealer is done with her, the next scene, she is getting balled by a fat Euopean Pediphile where her Dad finally rescues her and she is so out of it that she does't know where she is. The Dad quit his job to focus on his daughter and to make things right as they have both made mistakes.This movie is not for the faint of heart of the squimish. It is an accurate depiction of how woman get drugs in America and the results of drug addiction. Atleast she had a Dad that wouldn't give up. So many young women of our society, simply do not have that, or anyone else that will protect them. Leav your heart at the door as you will have tp put on your roller coaster stomach to find yourself watching the credits!

The performances are spot on. The switching scenes between Mexico and the US add to the depth of the movie. Great performances by the cast. I enjoy watching it every once in a while. It is a bit dated with the failed war on drugs, but that is what was going on at that time. The move itself is a "5", but this version being labeled a "Special Edition" and not really being "Special" drops it down a notch. This version is no different than other versions available. I recognized some of the deleted scenes as being part of the unrated version I remember seeing not long after this move originally came out. However, the deleted scenes do not include all the scenes from that version. If you are looking for the version with the more explicit scenes, then you'll need to keep looking elsewhere. If you are looking for a great movie anyway, then this just might be the movie you are looking for.

Exactly what I needed.

good movie

Very interesting story,and the black actor really can act.

Traffic opens with a banner on the screen announcing the filmic location to be Mexico, "twenty miles southeast of Tijuana." The film is grainy and has a decidedly yellow (although some have romanticized this color, calling it sepia) tone, and the audience is introduced to two State Police officers, Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) and Manolo Sanchez (Jacob Vargas), who are speaking Spanish. The dialogue begins with Javier explaining a nightmare to Manolo. Later, Javier and Manolo capture some drug transporters, the audience is introduced to the corrupt General Salazar (Tomas Milian), and the scene shifts to Columbus Ohio, where the graining is removed and the film is saturated with rich blue tones. Two minutes later, San Diego in all its beauty, arrives on screen.The audience is immediately alerted to the difference between the United States and Mexico. Not only through language, but also through Soderbergh's use of the tobacco filter. But this should not be surprising; establishing differences between the two countries is necessary for Soderbergh to maintain the hierarchical position of the United States over Mexico. And, this hierarchization is, I argue, why Soderbergh is able to critique America, vis-à-vis U.S. drug policy, while still garnering critical and popular praise: implicating Mexico as the agent of America's woes and advancing stereotypical representations of both Mexico and Hispanics, effectively deposits Mexico and its inhabitants into the ancillary position of the U.S./Mexico binary.Richard Porton's article in Cinéaste discusses the process Soderbergh goes through to create the yellowing of the Mexico scenes in the film. More importantly, in articulates the implications of Soderbergh's yellowing all of Mexico: "[Soderbergh] shot the Mexican sections 'through a tobacco filter' and then overexposed the film to imbue these vignettes with an oversaturated look. Mexico, therefore, becomes a miragelike, evanescent realm where life is cheap and morality is infinitely expendable. As film scholar and Latin American specialist Catherine Benamou observes, the movie 'posits an historical and moral hierarchy between the postmodern United States--which has to retrieve its moral foundations and family values--and premodern Mexico, which has presumably never been able to draw the line between the law and lawlessness'" (42) Significant about the hierarchy advanced by Benamou is that Mexico is implicated on both sides.First, the film certainly portrays Mexico as a place of lawlessness. This is seen in the opening sequence with the drug transporters: not only are they breaking the law by transporting illegal substances, but General Salazar's intervention highlights (if not immediately, then certainly later in the film) the lawlessness of the federal authorities. Lawlessness is witnessed again twenty-one minutes into the film when two American tourists are pleading for Javier's help in finding their stolen car; here, the corruption of the state authorities is illuminated by Javier's having to give the couple the phone number of a man whom they will pay, who, in turn, will pay the police to make their car appear. And, of course, the hit man Frankie Flowers (Clifton Collins, Jr.) being Hispanic and living in Mexico continues to fortify the notion of Mexico as lawless. Moreover, Soderbergh's representations of Mexicans as savages vis-à-vis the torturing of Frankie Flowers by General Salazar's men also accounts for Benamou's description of Mexico as premodern. The only thing that seems strange is General Salazar yelling to his men that "we are not savages," as if the exclamations of a corrupt official enmeshed in drug trafficking could somehow erase the scenes of stereotypic barbarism that Soderbergh captures through his tobacco filter.Second, by yellowing all the Mexico sequences in the film, Mexico is implicated as the agent which has, as Benamou states, led the "postmodern United States" astray from its "moral foundations and family values," which it must now retrieve. Wood explains that by "beginning with the yellow camera filters, Soderbergh insinuates that nearly all Mexicans are somehow involved in the drug trade" (761). But the yellowing of Mexico implicates both the people and the land; Wood further states that "from the highest echelons of power to the street dealers and sidemen, Soderbergh's portrayal of life across the border establishes Mexico (and by extension, all of Latin America) as the fountain of evil that is the drug trade" (760).Since, as Porton claims, Soderbergh's film is "primarily obsessed with how drugs have befouled the American family nest" (42), the argument is thus: (1) Benamou states that the U.S. is in a hierarchical position to Mexico but must still retrieve its moral foundations and family values; (2) these foundations and values are being destroyed by drugs (as seen via the Wakefield family); (3) yellowing the Mexico sequences implicates (nearly) all of Mexico and its inhabitants in the drug trade; (4) therefore, the disintegration of family values and morals in America is a result of lawless Mexico.In this light, Mexico is doubly culpable: one, Mexico's own lawlessness has averted its progression into a postmodern stage of development; two, Mexico's premodernity and lawlessness has thwarted the United States and threatens to derail their progression to the next stage of cultural development, which allows Soderbergh to make his critique of the United States. Traffic can adduce the United States as a country lacking in morals and family values, but only by simultaneous producing a scapegoat that Americans can point to as the entity responsible for their woes. Wood observes that, by portraying Javier as a "noble soldier while nearly all his compatriots fall prey to kidnapping, assassination, torture, and betrayal, Traffic offers a skewed portrait of Mexican society in getting its anti-drug message across to U.S. audiences" (760).

Dans ce film oscarisé à la photographie particulièrement soignée qui traite de la drogue et de ses ravages, Benicio del Toro occupe tout le film tant il est excellent dans ce rôle de flic mexicain intègre. Les autres acteurs en pâtissent.

Esta película es como un documental para entender el complejo mundo de las drogas. Los actores son excepcionales. Vale la pena verlo.

multiple plots, ensemble cast. stupendous movie!

I saw "Traffic" twice in the theatres when it originally came out and I was only 16 years old at the time. It definitely left an impression on me as an act of filmmaking and story telling. To see it again in a luscious new Blu-Ray transfer is to be reminded of what a masterpiece is.Criterion's Blu-Ray release of "Traffic" offers up this gritty looking film in stunning HD. The movie was intentionally made to look really raw and grainy and that look is preserved here. The original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 has been slightly opened up to 1.78:1 which does not affect the movie whatsoever (in the booklet that comes with the Blu-Ray it says that director Steven Soderbergh prefers this aspect ratio.) The extras are the same as the previous DVD release from Criterion and are all fascinating and really help one's appreciation of the film to grow.This is a cinematic classic that was hailed by critics and audiences alike. Do not hesitate to buy "Traffic".

This is a fairly long movie but i was engrossed after the opening scene. The film weaves several different, interconnecting stories all linked to drug trafficking. Cathering Zeta Jones is suberb as the wealthy wife who discovers that her husband's fortune isn't made from ligitimate business dealings, there is no way she will give up her life of luxury. Michael Douglas is his usual watchable self playing a government official who has just been given the job of sorting out the USA's drugs problem, little does he know what his teenage, privately educated daughter is getting up to. There are some very violent scenes including torture so this film may not be for the faint hearted. There is an almost-funny scene where the cops are trying to protect an informant whilst staying in a dingy hotel. A very entertaining film.