BBBBB
(out of 5)
Steven Soderbergh has outdone himself with this grand epic about the multi-tiered drug industry in the United States. The script by Stephen Gaghan seamlessly ties together three stories about innocent people caught up in the criminal world of narcotic abuse: Michael Douglas has recently been appointed as drug czar of the US government, only to find out along with his wife (Amy Irving) that his daughter is an addict; Benicio Del Toro is a Mexican cop who stumbles upon an operation that threatens his and his colleagues’ safety; Catherine Zeta-Jones is a wealthy pregnant housewife who finds out her husband (Steven Bauer) is not the honest businessman she thought he was but one of the biggest drug smugglers on the continent. Uniformly impeccable performances by all from the biggest to the small, with Del Toro standing out as the most amazing of them all (for most of us the movie is all about him!).
Compulsion Inc., Initial Entertainment Group, Splendid Medien AG, The Bedford Falls Company, USA Films
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Screenplay by Stephen Gaghan, based on the miniseries Traffik by Simon Moore
Cinematography by Steven Soderbergh
Produced by Laura Bickford, Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick
Music by Cliff Martinez
Production Design by Philip Messina
Costume Design by Louise Frogley
Film Editing by Stephen Mirrione
Another great review, loved the cinematography in this one.
And thank you again!