Here the war on drugs is illustrated in the simplistic vernacular of a PlayStation game. Oversimplified, federally funded art like the above gives added importance to Steven Soderbergh's superb new film, Traffic . Here's the first fictional movie in memory to deal with the contradictions and hopelessness of the war against drugs. This war is failing even as it escalates. Like the Vietnam War, it's kept going because it has already cost too much to give up.
Traffic shuttles among three different stories, with sidebars.
The old soldier is jockeying for a place as Mexico's head drug warrior. His current assignment is to break up the Obregon brothers' drug cartel, whose trademark is a printed scorpion on the packets of white powder they sell. The Mexican scenes, mostly subtitled, concern the difficulty of convincing a grossly underpaid police force to risk their lives to save the Yanquis from their own sweet tooth for drugs. Del Toro, usually a Latin cutthroat in the movies, is a revelation as an honest cop who is betrayed by almost everyone he trusts. But he's still amused by parts of the job.