A Review of Stephen Soderbergh's Movie, Traffic
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ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY A Review of Stephen Soderbergh's Movie, Traffic James R. Merikangas, MD j Am Acad Psychiatry Law 29:241-2, 2001 There is no question that movies have had a pro Catherine Zeta-Jones plays the wife of a prosperous found influence on public opinion in many areas of San Diego businessman (played by Steven Bauer) our cultural life. Classic films like TheSnake Pit, The whose fortune, unbeknownst to his wife, rests on the Three Faces ofEve, andeven Silence ofthe Lambs, have importation of drugs. educated or miseducated the public about mental Sadly, theplotwas derived from theheadlines and illness more thananytextbook or psychology course. the personal experience of Stephen Gaghan, the Likewise, TwelveAngry Men, The Caine Mutiny, and, screenwriter, who was himselfaddicted to drugsfor recently, Erin Brokovitch have shaped public opinion many years, and like the young woman in the film, about the law. On the smaller screen, television came from a privileged background.1 Because ofhis shows on a law theme that have great popularity in will and intelligence, he was able to turn these expe clude The Practice, Law andOrder, the longrunning riences into a work of art, which, in my opinion, Ironsides, and even Ally McBeal. Films about drug should be required viewing for anyone involved in addiction include Leaving Los Vegas, Trainspotting, psychiatry or publicpolicy. and perhaps the best of the lot, combining law, psy Through the clever cinematic device of adjusting chiatry, and the drugproblem, Traffic. thetiming ofthefilm processing chemistry, theMex Traffic, directed by Stephen Soderbergh, graphi ican scenes are tinged sepia, theprivileged life of the cally interlaces three parallel stories about the epi judge is light blue, andthesouthern California scenes demic of cocaine and heroin moving across the bor are inbright sunshine. Director Stephen Soderbergh derfrom Mexico, astheefforts of theAmerican Drug generates a fast-paced story, contrasting and blend Czar and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to ing the lives of these disparate and desperate charac stem thetideplay out.Meanwhile, we see thewanton ters. Anyone who hastreateddrug and alcohol abuse destruction of young lives, which is the end result. or has dealtwith the consequences of crime, degra Benicio Del Toro and Jacob Vargas playtwo Mexi can state troopers caught in the web of official cor dation, and disease which are the inextricable results ruption that makes drug traffic possible, while Mi ofsubstance abuse, will resonate with the realism of chael Douglas plays a conservative Ohio Supreme this movie. The film contains graphic scenes ofdrug Court justice who becomes appointed as the drug use, violence, and sexwhich is not erotic butsad. The czar. His 16-year-old daughter, played by a very tal general public maythink that thisgraphic represen ented Erika Christensen, freebases cocaine and pros tation ismerelyfiction, but it isall too accurate to be titutes herselfbetween private school and family din simply exploitation. ners, while thejudge and hiswife drinkcocktails and As thefilm openson astiflingMexican desert, two reminisce about their own drug use in the 1960s. policemen intercept a shipment of drugs, only to have their superiors arrive and confiscate the goods Dr. Merikangas isa Lecturer in Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT. Address correspondence to: James R. before they have a chance to do the job themselves. Merikangas, MD, 1 Bradley Rd., Suite 102, Woodbridge, CT 06525. Thesetwohonestcops, friends and rivals, struggle to Volume 29, Number 2, 2001 241 Stephen Soderbergh's Movie, Traffic advance their own agendas at the same time as the manufactured the appliances are all better off. Be forces ofcrime andcorruption buffet them. Awash in cause the drug user now has enough money for his enormous amountsof money and the temptation to daily fix, he ishappy; thosepolice who lookthe other help themselves tosome ofit, they track downdealers way in return for bribe and protection money and buyers. In thiscomplex plot,onedoes not know thereby supplement their salaries so that our taxes who the good guys are or whom to trust. Without can remain low. An occasional drug user will over revealing thetwists ofthemovie's plot, letme suggest dose and die. But this, ofcourse, reduces the cost of that ethical behavior is more difficult when loyalty medical care in the end. The producers of cocaine and betrayal may result in death. and heroin and their whole enterprise provide hard Across the borderin California the innocentwifeand cash to Latin America, reducing the dependence of mother, played by a pregnant (in real life) Catherine these poor countries on foreign aid. However, this Zeta-Jones, undergoes a transformation from suburban cynical view of the drug trade isclose enough to the idle-rich soccer Mom totigress guarding her cubs when truthto illustrate that thecomplexities oflegal, med her husband is arrested andaccused ofdrug trafficking. ical, and social problems may be more powerfully She learns what a woman has to sell and what only expounded on the large screen than theyare at con money can buy, when trapped intheweb ofconspiracy gressional hearings and in newspaper editorials. between thelaw andthelawyers. Thecourtroom scenes Thisaward-winning film has exposed themyths of are accurate and will reverberate withforensic psychia thedrugepidemic bycontrasting the wealth and in trists who have testified in criminal matters. fluence ofthekingpins andtheircorrupt bankers and Meanwhile, Michael Douglas, as the straight- shooting ambitious idealist, learns the hard way that attorneys, withthepoverty andsuffering ofthelower drug abuse is notjustfor thepoor orthecongenitally level minions who are the couriers and street level depraved when a father's worst nightmare strikes close dealers. Wesee thedecline and fall ofapretty, blond, to home. Money and power are impotent in theface private school girl in herprim uniform to thedepths of addiction, and theconcept of free will becomes a of degradation as she sells her body for heroin, and metaphorfor helplessness when cocaine is involved. the torture and terror suffered when the unwritten He learns that thewaron drugs, which he isto wage contracts ofcrime areenforced. Statistics or epidemi as the new drug czar, may require more than public ologic studies could not more eloquently explain the relations anddiplomacy for victory. Thescenes involv futility andtheabsurdity ofthewar ondrugs andour ing his daughter and her preppy friends expose the ineffectual efforts to treat its victims. The 19 billion denial, which characterizes the world view ofadults dollars ayear thatwe spend losing thewar ondrugs is dealing with teenagers inthis time ofvanishing child simply recycled back into the profits ofSouthAmer hood and the myth of adolescent innocence. ican drugproducers and the tax-exempt economy of More than 30 years ago, as a medical student in domestic drugconsumption, which isa major partof inner city Baltimore, I listened as a lecturer in first the gross national product. Thewar on drugs has esca year psychiatry described the "Marshall Plan of the lated with not onlymonetarycosts, but with millions Inner City." He explained why domestic drug use of lives wasted in prison, essentially persecuted for was anessential partofthewar on poverty. It isavery suffering from adisease, thelepers ofourmodern times. simple fact in economics that poor people who can Thisfilm has already caused many ingovernment not afford consumer goods can get a large-screen to reassess the war on drugs. SenatorJohn McCain color television from theirlocal drugaddict foronly was quoted in the Los Angeles Times, "I saw Traffic $100. The scheme works like this. A drug addict with my 16-year-old daughter and it had a verypow burglarizes a house in suburbia to get the television; erful effect. It's caused me to rethinkour policies and the suburbanite reports these losses to his/her insur priorities." I would recommend that everyone see ance company in a slightly inflated form and gets a Traffic, a film that is entertaining, disturbing, and check to replace them; the insurance company raises graphically real. rates and makes a profit on its investments; the ap pliance store thenprofits from selling new merchan References dise; the Teamsters profit from transporting it, the 1. Lyman R: Gritty Portrayal of the Abyss From a Survivor. New longshoremen from unloading it,and theAsians who YorkTimes, Monday, February 5, 2001, p El 242 The Journal ofthe American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.