Traffic Blu-ray: Review By Paolo Sardinas

After his first hit, "sex, lies and videotape", Steven Soderbergh exploded out of the indie scene and on the Hollywood A-list. His other big release, George Clooney's action thriller "Out of Sight" received high praise as well, but his real acclaim came in 200 when he had double the shot at winning an Oscar. "Erin Brokovich" and "Traffic" were both critical and financial successes. "Traffic", the latest classic to get the Blu-Ray upgrade, was, and is, one of the best films released in the past decade.

The multilayered and complex narrative follows three stories. The first is Mexican cop Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) who witnesses the corruption of the Mexican government at the hands of the drug cartels and the illegal smuggling of drugs into the states. Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), an ambitious judge is picked as the new Drug Tsar and runs into more political problems than he expected, including his own daughters addiction to drugs. The third and final story follows DEA agent Montel Gordon (Don Cheadle) whose attempts at bringing down a drug ring in California only makes matters worse. At the same time, a suburban housewife (Catherin Zeta-Jones) is forced into taking her newly arrested husband's secret drug cartel as a way of protecting her family.

The various high profile stars don't take any meaning away from the fact that this is an extremely well-acted film. With a supporting cast featuring the likes of Albert Finney, Luis Guzman, Eddie Bower and Dennis Quaid the film exceeds all expectations. But the real scene stealer is Benicio Del Toro playing the morally complex and torn cop. Del Toro won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role but in this film he proves he has the serious acting chops of a leading man. Scripted by Stephen Gaghan, "Traffic" is based off of the equally acclaimed British television program "Traffik". The story is complicated, obviously, but Soderbergh does a fine job of telling all of these complex stories in a what that makes sense while at the same time keeping a consistent tone. Each story is shot with a different color palette. When story is in Mexico we get an ugly, dirty, yellow-brown, when the story shifts to the American judge and government we get a crisp blue, and when we shift to the suburban housewife and the DEA agent we get a mixture of the two. Soderbergh pulls off this tricky maneuvering and treats each story as their own film, leaving the viewer waiting for what happens next in each little snippet.

"Traffic" is one of the last decade's best films. At times, certain plot elements can feel a bit forced, like Douglas' daughter's addiction can feel a bit ironic and forced at times, but the movie never feels incomplete, always leaving you wanting more. "Traffic" is a compelling, engrossing, well-made, and important film that also happens to be one of, if not, Soderbergh's best.

This Blu-Ray release, sadly, is a bit light on extras. In fact, they're the exact same ones that were featured on the original DVD release. In this release we get the Inside Traffic featurette which runs about 20-minutes long. We also get treated to some deleted scenes that don't really offer much. One thing that caught my eye is the fact that this film comes with both the DVD and Blu-Ray versions. I felt a bit cheated by Universal's decision to include both versions on a "flip-disc".

Universal presents Traffic on Blu-ray in a VC-1 encoded 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen 1080p high definition transfer that is looks just as grainy and gritty as its supposed to be. But at the same time this is the way Soderbergh intended the film to look. It may bother those of you who want your Blu-Ray releases to look all clean and pristine. Some of the colors have noticeably been adjusted so the hot and fake looks of them match the film's gritty look and appeal. Some details and are obscured by the grain but overall its a fairly well done Blu-Ray transfer.

We're given a DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio track thats good to an extent. The film never has any action type immersing moments so this isn't the best flick to show off your new theater experience. But for the dialogue driven aesthetic of "Traffic" is suits just fine. The dialogue is crystal clear, except for the occasional thick accent, and during some of the scenes that do feature some action you can hear everything just right. "Traffic"'s dialogue is what makes the film and fortunately it showcased just right here.

The front cover features the films original, theatrical poster. On the back we get the usual, some screenshots, plot summary, cast listing, and a special features listing. Oh, don't forget the tech specs.

All in all, "Traffic" is a decent release. The film itself is one of the best of the last two decades and never has a dull moment throughout. The film's video quality is good and the audio is decent for this type of film. But for those who are looking for a more complete package you might want to consider purchasing, or keeping, the fantastic Criterion release from a few years ago. But overall, "Traffic" is a gritty film that takes on a serious subject without the melodrama.