His Olympian incorruptibility never rings true. The issue of drugs is not a small one in the US today, and in many countries. It contributes to the social and psychological misery of many. For all its pyrotechnics and for all the fanfare that has surrounded the movie, Traffic , disappointingly, doesn't carry out any such investigation. Taking on such an indisputably critical issue and dealing with it honestly would require a different approach than the one taken by the filmmakers.
Traffic is a breathtakingly establishment work.
These were people with multiple graduate degrees who were working in public service for their country, for the American people. Making an appearance in one scene, a Georgetown cocktail party, are Senators Barbara Boxer and Orin Hatch, the latter an extreme right-winger. There was a time when serious artists would have been ashamed to be associated so intimately with such politicians and police agencies. Indeed the filmmakers' main premise seems to be that the American government and its branches comprise a pure, undiluted, drug-fighting machine. Despite this stalwart machine's best efforts, drugs flow freely into the United States because law-enforcers are hamstrung by restrictive laws and budgetary constraints, while drug lords operate without limitations in the backward societies.