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Traffic

2000

Steven Soderbergh

Michael Douglas, Benicio del Toro, Don Cheadle, Catherine Zeta-Jones ...

7.1

63,560

Thriller. Drama The film tells three seemingly disparate stories that loosely intersect and overlap, unfurling at a frantic, relentless pace. In the first, a well-intentioned Mexican police officer, Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro), comes face-to-face with the hypocrisy and hopelessness of his situation after he learns that his superior, General Salazar (Tomas Milian), isn’t the law-abiding officer he claims to be. In the second, Robert ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"Soderbergh's story, from a screenplay by Stephen Gaghan, cuts between these characters so smoothly that even a fairly complex scenario remains clear and charged with tension (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Stephen Holden The New York Times	"[It] may be the first Hollywood movie since Robert Altman's 'Nashville' to infuse epic cinematic form with jittery new rhythms and a fresh, acid-washed palette."	POS
United States	Todd McCarthy Variety	"Enormously ambitious and masterfully made, 'Traffic' represents docudrama-style storytelling at a very high level"	POS
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"The hand-held camerawork (...) provides a documentary feel that rivets attention. What’s remarkable, amid the frenzy, is how the actors bring vibrant human dimension to their roles."	POS
United States	Richard Schickel Time	"Finally, though, 'Traffic', for all its earnestness, does not work. It leaves one feeling restless and dissatisfied."	NEG
United States	Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly	"We get the delicious, vibratory feeling that every character on screen is worth a movie of his or her own (...) It tells many stories at once, and each of them is supple and layered and observant and gripping"	POS
United Kingdom	Philip French The Guardian	"Great acting, greater set-pieces and a grippingly told story. Steven Soderbergh's 'Traffic' is a masterpiece from first to last"	POS
United States	Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader	"I don't see this slightly better-than-average drug thriller, with slightly better-than-average direction by Steven Soderbergh, as anything more than a routine rubber-stamping of genre reflexes"	NEU
United Kingdom	Colin Kennedy Empire	"Given a great script and cast, Steven Soderbergh is unsurpassed as a storyteller. In possession of both elements here, Soderbergh -as clear as he is brave- turns in work of the very highest order (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Ben Falk BBC	"A sprawling, artistic, superbly acted, informative, and mainstream Hollywood movie (...) Brave, interesting, and stylish (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Scott Tobias AV Club	"While the film's mammoth ambition opens up a few minor flaws (...) its achievements are impossibly rich. Most important of all, 'Traffic' gives the fullest treatment yet of a problem that won't go away."	POS
United States	Desson Thomson The Washington Post	"Del Toro's the best reason of all to watch the movie (...) Soderbergh and Gaghan create compelling, gloves-off drama"	POS

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