Netflix And Chill: Traffic (2000)

Based on a TV series that I sadly never saw (yet), Traffic is another excellent ensemble film from Steven Soderbergh that allows him to play to his strengths aka his ability to marry the right cast to an intelligent script and present everything in a way that is both grounded and also cine-literate and full of memorable moments.

In case you couldn't guess from the title, Traffic is all about the drug trade, showing how it affects a number of key figures in both America and Mexico. Danger and death are never too far from people on the front line (played by the likes of Benicio Del Toro, Don Cheadle, and Luis Guzmán), getting a proper handle on the situation may prove too difficult for someone making moves politically (Michael Douglas), and those high up the "food chain" (such as characters played by Thomas Milian and Steven Bauer) might prove impossible to bring back down to within reaching distance of the not-so-long arms of the law.

Everyone I have just mentioned does a great job here, but the highlights are undoubtedly, for me, Del Toro, Douglas, and Catherine Zeta-Jones (playing the wife of a businessman arrested for drug dealing). Cheadle and Guzmán work brilliantly together, and they have a number of scenes with the brilliant Miguel Ferrer, who surprises nobody by turning up onscreen to spend some time being . . . brilliant. Erika Christensen has the job of showing how drugs can easily take hold of the kids, helped along by her unfortunate association with a young sleazebag played by Topher Grace. Some characters may figure more prominently than others, but everyone plays their part in showing the risks and rewards, and the outward ripple effect, of the drug supply chain.

Soderbergh has a savvy script by Stephen Gaghan to work with, and he treats it well. It may seem like an obvious gimmick to give the differing story strands a basic kind of colour coding, but it certainly helps to keep viewers orientated as we jump from one scenario to another, looking out for important developments and points of interconnection (not necessarily in the standard narratives or character moments, but more often in the methodology and the shaping of spiderwebbing plans).

Despite all of the positives on display here, Traffic could have easily failed if it had at any point started to feel like some piece of scaremongering or propaganda. Thanks to Gaghan and Soderbergh, it never does. There's one hard truth at the heart of this, and it's not one that everyone will appreciate. The war on drugs was never won, and probably never will be. A profitable drug economy is like a viral video of some majorly embarrassing incident. No matter how much people hope it will disappear, it's only going to spread and worm into the global consciousness of anyone who gets wind of it.

One or two scenes in the third act notwithstanding, bits of melodrama that feel unnecessary and a bit overdone, this is a strong contender for Soderbergh's finest film, and those brief moments aren't enough to stop it from being something I consider pretty perfect. I'd even say that it's a film vying for a very high position in the respective filmographies of every main cast member. Smart, thrilling, equal parts thought-provoking and entertaining, Traffic is a film that everyone should watch at least once. And I'm sure many will make time for repeat viewings.

10/10

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Prime Time: Swimfan (2002)

A teen version of Fatal Attraction, but without any leads that come near to the star power or talent of Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, Swimfan is the kind of trashy fun that will have you both rolling your eyes and smirking with amusement.

Jesse Bradford is Ben Cronin, a young man who has managed to overcome his troubled past and put his energy into excelling in the school swimming competitions. He has a happy life, and a very lovely girlfriend in the shape of Amy Miller (played by Shiri Appleby). So it's a real puzzle why he would risk all that when a new girl (Madison Bell, played by Erika Christensen) comes along, makes big eyes at him, and quickly shows herself to be more than capable of making trouble for him if she cannot have him all to herself. Everything escalates at great speed, making the attempted building of tension inadvertently hilarious as things go from bad to worse for our flawed lead.

Directed by John Polson, who would next direct a much-maligned horror (that I quite enjoy), Hide And Seek, before one other film and then a solid selection of work on various TV shows, Swimfan seems to know exactly how silly it is. The script, by Charles F. Bohl (credited without the middle initial) and Phillip Schneider, doesn't waste any time in bringing the characters together and starting to develop the danger, and madness.

The cast are all just right in their roles, even if they're not always acting in the same movie. Christensen, for example, is absolutely revelling in the self-delusion and psychopathy of her character, while both Bradford and Appleby could be dropped into pretty much any teen drama from this time. Clayne Crawford and Jason Ritter struggle to make an impression with their limited screentime, but old pro Dan Hedaya has no such trouble, of course, and James DeBello does well in a role that doesn't rely on him to use the kind of exuberant, brash persona he had front and centre in a number of his other performances. Kate Burton should have been given more to do, playing the mother of Bradford's character, and enlarging her role could have helped to add some tension to the third act (this could have been much more entertaining with more people available to be terrorised and harmed, or even killed).

This remains a distracting bit of fun because of it so obviously riffing on something much better. As a standard teen thriller, however, it falls below so many others. I've not seen all of the titles available in this market, but I've seen enough to have a good overview. And I'd put Disturbia, Disturbing Behaviour, Gossip, and maybe even The In Crowd ahead of this, even if some of them are a very close call.

5/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

The Tortured (2010)

When a couple (Erika Christensen and Jesse Metcalfe) have their young son snatched away from them they are understandably distraught. They want him home, alive and well. Bill Moseley plays the kidnapper and by the time he is apprehended it's too late. A young life has been snuffed out. This all happens within the first 10 minutes of the movie so I'm not spoiling anything here for you. The film really gets going when the grieving parents attend the trial of the murderer and find themselves unable to accept anything less than the death sentence. They find themselves getting more and more frustrated with each day that the killer continues to live that they decide the most satisfying justice will be their own. They hatch a plan to create the time and opportunity to have some "alone time" with the killer of their son.

The Tortured is an okay movie, especially during the middle section that features an awful lot of time showing someone being, well, tortured. Sadly, it all comes completely apart during an ending that is as implausible as it is insulting (yes, it IS insulting). Director Robert Lieberman may take some of the blame for not making the best movie possible but the worst offender here is writer Marek Posival, who was either thinking that he was being very clever while actually being very stupid or was, quite possibly, just taking the piss.

The acting by everyone onscreen is passable for this type of material but it's a real shame that this couldn't have been more carefully considered and balanced and thought-provoking. The central idea is an interesting one, as tempting as it is shocking. IF such a tragedy occurred in your life (touch wood that this should remain purely hypothetical for all) would you not want to take matters into your own hands? Such thinking has led to disturbing films such as The Last House On The Left, Straw Dogs, Death Wish and many others but The Tortured distances itself from superior offerings by providing no depth with the exploitative shocks. It doesn't want you to think about things or actually use the movie as a jumping off point for discussion and debate. It just wants to appeal to your basic bloodlust. That's all well and good if the movie was happy to aim at that level but that godawful ending shows that there are some loftier ideas shoehorned into the mix. That's when failure takes root, because a movie has to be a damn sight better than this one to get away with such bloody cheek.

4/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Tortured-DVD/dp/B003B3KPHQ

Riding The Bullet (2004)

Riding The Bullet is yet another movie based on a short story by Stephen King and yet another King adaptation with Mick Garris directing (he's also helmed Sleepwalkers, The Stand, The Shining TV mini-series, Desperation and others). Mick Garris can do okay with strong enough material and I liked his earlier collaborations with King but it seems that, as they've grown more familiar and comfortable with each other, the director has taken on a few of the author's failings. I love the written works of Stephen King but he can't hit a home run every time (who can?) and when he's not on top form his writing is often full of too much superfluous Americana while good ideas are swamped by all of the local colour and insignificant sideroads.

Riding The Bullet was the first story that King ever released online. It seemed to be a success and I enjoyed the story when I read it in standard printed form in Everything's Eventual (a fantasic collection of short stories from someone who really is a master of the form). But it's not a great story and it's not a very lengthy story. It takes about 60 pages or so to tell the tale so making a 90 minute movie out of the thing would seem to be a difficult task. The movie of Riding The Bullet runs for 98 minutes. That kind of tells you everything you need to know right there. Great movies have certainly been made out of shorter stories but Riding The Bullet doesn't even have all that much going on under the literary layers, so to speak, and with the movie not adding too much to the material it all feels like something stretched way beyond breaking point.

This is more of an enjoyable twist on the "ghostly hitch-hiker" tale than anything else as Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) heads home to get to his hospitalised mother (Barbara Hershey). On his journey he thinks back to childhood memories (one of them involving his turn to ride on "The Bullet" rollercoaster), talks to himself, encounters some characters that pad out the running time and then takes a lift from someone (David Arquette) that he begins to suspect shouldn't be in any condition to drive a car.

There's just nothing here at all worth noting. Garris scripted the movie from the Stephen King story and either lifts things directly from the source or adds completely pointless material (though a scene near the very beginning with a vision of death and some lively wall decor gave me hope for some impressively imaginative work that subsequently went into hiding for the rest of the movie). The acting is all fine and the soundtrack contains a few decent tunes. But by the time the end credits roll you can't help feeling that you just wasted your time watching something of complete insignificance.

Personally, I'd recommend this as one of the many Stephen King adaptations to avoid but die-hard fans may be better pleased with it than I was. It's doubtful though.

4/10.

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