An exploration of the United States of America's war on drugs from multiple perspectives. For the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the war becomes personal when he discovers his well-educated daughter is abusing cocaine within their comfortable suburban home. In Mexico, a flawed, but noble policeman agrees to testify against a powerful general in league with a cartel, and in San Diego, a drug kingpin's sheltered trophy wife must learn her husband's ruthless business after he is arrested, endangering her luxurious lifestyle.
Soderbergh's jazzed stylistics can be smartly entertaining. Without them, an uneven movie like Traffic might seem more of a melange than it already is.
– Peter Rainer,
New York Magazine/Vulture,
26 Sep 2002
fresh:
Director Steven Soderbergh is riding one of the hottest streaks in the movie world.
– Rick Groen,
Globe and Mail,
25 Apr 2003
fresh:
It's wise about different kinds of addiction and concepts of family, about the folly, futility and hypocrisy of anti-drug 'wars', and about the awful human cost of it all. And it grips like a vice from start to end.
– Geoff Andrew,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
The promise of Sex, Lies, and Videotape has been fulfilled.
– Andrew Sarris,
New York Observer,
27 Apr 2007
rotten:
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.