Faucheaux-Traffic

The Steven Soderbergh film Traffic follows three intersecting story lines, all dealing with the narcotics industry in Mexico and the United States.

The first plot follows Mexican police officer Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez and his partner Manolo as they are hired by General Salazar to assist him in bringing down the Obregón Cartel in Tijuana. After helping to greatly cripple that cartel, Javier discovers that Salazar is working for the rival cartel of the Obregón brothers. Salazar’s section of the Mexican “anti-drug campaign” is a dupe. Manolo tries to sell this information to the Drug Enforcement Administration, but is found out by Salazar and killed. Javier decides to reveal the truth about Salazar’s alignment to the DEA and, instead of payment, requests for electricity to be run to his neighborhood baseball field. Salazar is arrested and dies in prison and Javier watches the children play baseball at night in their newly lit field. 

In the United States, undercover DEA agents Montel Gordon and his partner Ray Castro arrest Eddie, a drug dealer who pleads immunity and rats out his boss, Carlos Ayala. Carlos is the big distributer in the United States for the Obregón Cartel. When he is arrested, his wife Helena learns of his real profession for the first time. When the lofty lifestyle she has become so accustomed to begins falling to pieces, she goes to great lengths to have Eddie assassinated. The first man she hires unintentionally kills agent Castro instead. Eventually she does have Eddie killed, and without him to testify, Carlos is released. Angry at this and the death of his partner, agent Gordon plants a bug in the Ayala home.

Ohio judge Robert Wakefield is appointed as the new drug czar for the Office of National Drug Control. After she has a little run in with the law, Wakefield finds out that his "honor roll" daughter, Caroline, is a cocaine addict. When he goes to a colleague to get her record expunged, his associate asks if he has ever had a conversation with Caroline about what exactly she has been experimenting with. Wakefield replies “no” and then goes off to investigate the drug detecting activities of the U.S. border instead of going home and talking to his daughter. As the highest authority in the anti-drug initiative, Wakefield’s reaction to finding out about his Caroline’s habit is to ground her indefinitely, and with no real support from her parents, she eventually runs away and prostitutes herself to procure money for drugs. After tracking down and rescuing his semiconscious daughter from a sleazy hotel, Wakefield finds himself at a press conference, unable to continue his speech about his plan for the war on drugs. He walks out of the press conference and resolves to accompany Caroline to her Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

This movie shows that differences in the standard of living turns drug trafficking from a frowned upon but socially accepted norm in the United States into a way of life that is above the law in Mexico.

With the Mexican drug cartels, the criminal activity of drugs is a business; it is a corporation that just so happens to be illegal. The expendable employees and the product loss are figured in already, it makes no dent in the industry. The law does not get in their way, they have more money than the law. There is a definite imbalance of power. The local government and the police have no control and no real authority. At the beginning of the movie, two men moving a truckload of drugs are pulled over by Javier and Manolo. As the officers walk towards the truck, one of the men says, “oh, it’s just the police.”

The main implication of the film is that the war against drugs is not an easy one to win, but the fight must keep going. The ending to each of the story lines gives a message of hope:

Javier watching the kids playing baseball rather than being involved in street gangs and crime, shows that, given the chance, new generations can dig themselves out of the rut that their families and communities have burrowed into.

The microphone that Gordon plants is a symbol of not giving up after defeat. At a world wide, or even on a national level, the “war on drugs” may never end. But never underestimate the significance of little victories.

Wakefield’s acceptance of his daughter’s addiction shows the importance of dialogue between generations on issues such as this. It also shows that the war on drugs mainly needs to be fought on a more personal level. When it comes to your own family, the war waged on drugs is up to you, not the government.