Traffic (2000) on Netflix
Ohio judge Robert Wakefield becomes the nation's drug czar while his daughter Caroline abuses cocaine. In Mexico, Javier Rodriguez accepts an assignment from General Salazar.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.5/10232,091 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
Robert Wakefield, an Ohio judge, is appointed the nation's drug czar. He is warned that the war on drugs cannot be won. His teenage daughter Caroline is addicted to cocaine. In Mexico, Javier Rodriguez and Manolo Sanchez, two police officers, halt a drug transport. General Salazar interrupts the arrests and gives Javier a special assignment: to catch Francisco Flores, a hitman for the Tijuana Cartel. In San Diego, DEA agents Montel Gordon and Ray Castro arrest Eduardo Ruiz, a dealer who poses as a fisherman, and he names his boss, Carlos Ayala.
Cast
- Andrew Chavezas Desert Truck Driver
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Traffic (2000)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Harrison Ford was considered for Robert Wakefield in January 2000, though he would have had to take a significant cut in his usual $20 million salary. He met Soderbergh and Gaghan reworked the role, but Ford turned it down on 20 February and the filmmakers brought it back to Michael Douglas, who had turned down an earlier draft.
- Benicio del Toro, a native of Puerto Rico, worked hard to master Mexican inflections and feared another actor would be brought in to re-record his dialogue in English. He remembers telling Steven Soderbergh, "No way. Over my dead body," and Soderbergh answering, "Don't worry. It's not gonna happen."
- Half of the first day's footage came out overexposed and unusable, and Soderbergh was already doing reshoots before the financiers or studio bosses knew about the problem. The insurers then made him agree that any further mishaps resulting in additional filming would come from his own pocket.
- Soderbergh gave each story its own look: tungsten film with no filter for Robert Wakefield's cold blue scenes, diffusion filters and overexposure for Helena Ayala's warmer ones, and tobacco filters with a 45-degree shutter angle for Javier Rodriguez's. He then took the entire film through an Ektachrome step, which increased the contrast and grain significantly.
- The character General Arturo Salazar is closely modeled on the Mexican general Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, who was secretly on the payroll of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, head of the Juárez Cartel.
