Steven Soderbergh 's latest film is heavy on style and chock full of anti drug-war propaganda, but does it deliver the dope?

YOU MAY HAVE HEARD about this movie 'Traffic', a gritty real-life portrayal of life on the front lines of the drug war, directed artfully by Steven Soderbergh and crammed end to end with major Hollywood stars. Sure you've heard about it, maybe you've even seen it by now. It's up for a few awards. It's full of anti drug-war propaganda. It's being labeled as a 'classic' and Soderbergh is now a 'genius'. But is the movie really all that good?

I went into Traffic with high expectations and must say that it was quite good for a movie churned out of the Hollywood system. Soderbergh's film-school tricks for adding hues or extra exposure to scenes depending on their mood and location embedded a layer of depth and tension into the narrative and gave the whole film a by-the-hip indie feel you'd expect from a younger director. And the way the varying levels of storytelling intersected silently with each other in random locations throughout the film gives the viewer a heightened sense of thoughtfulness from the director that you wouldn't expect from a typical cut-and-paste action thriller.

Yes, it is a good movie. Even the actors are good in it, and the two prep-school baseheads played by Erika Christensen and Topher Grace (That '70s Show) are especially interesting. But where Traffic ultimatly piles up is in the screenplay itself. The story is good and the message is clear ("The Drug War is futile at best, deadly at worst"), but the way in which the story plays out left me feeling a bit cheated, once again lied to by the slick merchandising machine that is Hollywood.

If you have not seen the movie and hate spoilers you can stop reading here and skip ahead to the last paragraph. I am about to divulge a few problems I had with the end of the film. First off, the realism of the movie flew completely out the window as conservative Drug-Czar to be Robert Wakefield (played effortlessly by Michael Douglas) caves in on his acceptance speech and has a tender change of heart about his hard-line Drug War beliefs in front of the American public. He then races to support his crack-addicted daughter through treatment and recovery and we are led to believe that through his courage and a little lip-service at narc-anon that everything will be alright. Up until this point the movie was fairly unflinching in its attempt at realism, even convincing, but the over-the-top Oliver Stone-ing of message coupled with the 'coming-up-roses' ending made me feel sold. For all the plot complexity, in the end the message was as crisp and heavy-handed as an after-school special.

Despite all that, I wouldn't recommend that you just say 'No' to Traffic. Even though it's only about blow I would say it's worth seeing, but do keep a critical eye on the message vs. what actually happens in the movie. The contradictions in this film are as earnest and illogical as America's own love/hate relationship with drugs, and maybe that's the movie's whole point. Either way, it is still a good movie by Hollywood standards.

Rating: 8 out of 10