Traffic

TRAFFIC                   A                    

USA  Germany  (147 mi)  2000  d:  Steven Soderbergh

A film about the consequences of governmental lies, revealing a political climate awash in a sea of corruption, viewed as overtly cynical and deceptive, unable to speak truthfully even about ordinary matters, instilling a complete lack of faith in government.  Spinning a narrative that covers interwoven stories unraveling on multiple fronts from Tijuana, Mexico, to the upscale neighborhoods of La Jolla and San Diego in southern California, El Paso, Texas, the Midwestern rust belt of Cincinnati, and the seat of governmental power in Washington D.C.  Making appearances as themselves are sitting U.S. Senators Harry Reid of Nevada, Barbara Boxer of California, Don Nickles of Oklahoma, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah, while Bill Weld is the current governor of Massachusetts, giving this a documentary feel for authenticity, an exposé on the futile limitations of the War on Drugs, all window dressing with very little understanding on how to actually make a difference, yet this plays out more like a thriller, as competing drug cartels in Mexico make massive amounts of profits, investing in the latest technological advances, where their spy equipment is much more sophisticated than anything on the U.S. side of the border, with each side trying to peel off informants, where stealing information is the only way to stay in the game.  Like some sort of modern era spy novel, this gets dark and dirty on the Mexican side, where torture has become routine.  While the United States tries to keep up, they don’t have the money or resources to compete, often fooled by who’s working for who, as it’s a dizzying parade of interchangeable parts where life expectancy is extremely low as murder rates are high.  What’s immediately apparent is the stylish manner in which this unravels, using color filters to remind viewers of three distinct geographical regions, as Tijuana is oversaturated with bleached out color, southern California is always sunny and bright, while Cincinnati in the Midwest is portrayed with a light blue filter.  Acting as his own cinematographer (under the alias Peter Andrews), one of the last Soderbergh films that was primarily shot on film, this is distinguished by an innovative style, energetic and suspenseful throughout, brilliantly mixing known faces with unknowns, using a myriad of aspiring young actors that are now among the Hollywood elite, where recognizable faces are even filling relatively small roles (Albert Finney, Salma Hayek, Viola Davis), though many of them were not known at the time.  Benicio del Toro won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as a local Mexican cop speaking primarily Spanish throughout, one of only five actors to have won an Academy Award for a role spoken mainly in a foreign language, the others being Sophia Loren, Robert De Niro, Marion Cotillard, and Roberto Benigni.  Other Academy Award winners include Steven Soderbergh (Best Director), Stephen Gaghan (Best Adapted Screenplay), and Stephen Mirrione (Best Editing). 

  

Adapted from the 6-part British television mini-series from 1989 written by Simon Moore interweaving three stories about the international drug trade entitled Traffik, Soderbergh similarly features three storylines (though it feels like more), with a percussive score written by Cliff Martinez, opening with del Toro as Javier Rodriguez and his partner Manolo Sanchez (Jacob Vargas) making a drug bust out in the heat of an empty field, catching a plane landing filled with drugs, waiting until it’s loaded into a van and then arresting the men, but they are quickly overtaken by even larger police vehicles who take over the bust, commanded by General Salazar (Tomas Milian) for their excellent intelligence information, but claiming it’s their jurisdiction, as he’s a higher ranking official.  What this suggests is there are always bigger fish in the ocean.  Like a Godfather saga, the unseen hands that hold the true levers of power are mostly never seen by the public, existing by reputation only, operating in secret completely behind the scenes, where the two largest rivals are the Tijuana (run by the Obregón brothers) and the Juárez (run by Porfilio Madrigal, Joel Torres, supposedly changing his appearance through plastic surgery) drug cartels, where the public faces are operators and distributors disguised as ordinary businessmen.  Early on one of these businessmen, Carlos Ayala (Steven Bauer) is arrested at his upscale home in La Jolla as his distraught wife Helena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) looks on, covering her son’s eyes from the mess he’s gotten into, charged with being the biggest U.S. drug distributor for the Obregóns, with a tough-minded Ohio judge Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas) wanting to send a harsh message to the Mexican cartels.  Wakefield is eventually selected to become the next Drug Czar for the nation, selected by the President, though he’s warned by his predecessor General Landry (James Brolin) that the War on Drugs is unwinnable, as the demand for drugs in the United States is simply too high (the U.S. consumes more than 55% of all illicit drugs produced, although it represents only 5% of the total world population), so the supply to meet that demand is ridiculously profitable, becoming what amounts to the largest illegal business operation anywhere in existence, a $50 billion dollar industry in Mexico alone and another $60 billion in the U.S.  This is what drives the horrendous murder rates in Mexico, nearly 30,000 deaths just last year, many of them casualties of war as innocent bystanders, much of this covered in Gerardo Naranjo’s exasperatingly realistic film Miss Bala (2011), while also opening the door to the HBO TV mini-series The Wire (2002–2008), both of which serve as a follow-up to this film.  While del Toro’s role is not only the central focus, as he’s just one guy trying to do something about it, but he may be the only character in the film unstained by the lure of money, so he is the moral center of the picture.  Lured by General Salazar to come work for him, they immediately target the Obregón brothers, hiring Javier to kidnap one of their professional hitmen, Frankie Flowers (Clifton Collins Jr.), who is tortured for information, turning into a massive raid on the Tijuana cartel that receives plenty of publicity in the United States as a cleanup operation, with Wakefield visiting Salazar in Mexico, believing this is his counterpart, with an intent to share resources and operational information, but this never comes to pass for various reasons, most of all an inherent distrust. 

 

One of the more compelling storylines is the life of Wakefield’s 16-year old daughter, Caroline (Erika Christensen, a stand-out), an honors high school student near the top of her class in an elite private school who has a habit of experimenting with serious drugs, including freebasing cocaine to shooting heroin, becoming the sex toy of her black dealer (Vonte Sweet), bringing the war on drugs back home, where her descent feels highly improbable, yet it reflects the real-life circumstances and observations of writer Stephen Gaghan, a drug abuser who came from a similar privileged background.  In fact, Caroline’s résumé of school activities, academic achievement, and sports clubs that she recites to a social worker is that of writer Gaghan himself.  This is a heartbreaking aspect of the story that continually disrupts and interferes with Wakefield’s lofty ambitions, causing marital dysfunction with his wife (Amy Irving), forever keeping the family in turmoil, suggesting drug abuse is not just for the poor, yet it also adds a racial component to the film that is disturbingly provocative, to say the least, especially the way the black community is so dispassionately analyzed in starkly realistic capitalistic terms by one of Caroline’s white high school friends, suggesting that at any given moment in America, 100,000 white people are driving through black neighborhoods looking for drugs, where a dealer who can make $200 in two hours is hardly motivated to look elsewhere for employment.  Then imagine 100,000 black people scouring white neighborhoods in search of drugs, wouldn’t there be similar results?  It’s a matter of simple economics.  In similar fashion, there is another head-scratching development when Helena is threatened by the drug cartels to pay back an outrageous amount of money owed by her husband, snuggling under the comforting wing of her husband’s high-priced lawyer (Dennis Quaid), actually making a visit to Tijuana for a ballsy face-to-face with Juan Obregón (Benjamin Bratt), startling everyone by expertly demonstrating her capacity to turn into one of the drug lords overnight, re-assuming her husband’s position as the primary west coast distributor.  And let’s not forget to mention the comedy team of undercover eavesdroppers, DEA investigators Montel Gordon (Don Cheadle) and Ray Castro (Juan Guzmán) in San Diego, two smart alecks with a chemistry for satiric, in your face, trash talking, who set the bait to arrest Eduardo Ruiz (Miguel Ferrer) posing as a fisherman, one of Ayala’s most proficient dealers, wanting immunity to testify against his former boss, which makes all the headlines.  The other shocking development is the discovery that General Salazar is actually working for the Juárez cartel, which explains his interest in wiping out the Obregón brothers, but after taking a hit they demonstrate a surprising capacity to fight back.  Both Javier and Manolo are well aware that this revelation is worth plenty of money to the Americans, with Manolo losing his life trying to make a deal.  Javier has few options left but to complete the deal afterwards, an act that feels like betrayal for him, yet he doesn’t want a penny for himself, requesting electricity in his run-down neighborhood, as his real interest is developing a baseball diamond in Tijuana with lights, a place where kids have a chance to play baseball at night rather than be tempted by street gangs and the ravaging drug culture.  Salazar is quickly arrested and seen facing the same music he demanded so brazenly from others, viciously tortured while incarcerated, likely murdered, a heinous part of a business that ultimately takes a deathly toll.  The film does paint a grim portrait of an unwinnable war on drugs, leaving an endless cycle of investigations and court cases and a human cost of perpetual bodies littered in its wake, with the music of Brian Eno playing over the end credits, Brian Eno - AN ENDING (ascent) - YouTube (4:21), mixed with the sounds of kids playing baseball, leaving us with an empty feeling of overall futility, where one can only hope.    

Note

The War on Drugs is an anti-drug crusade that is costing billions of dollars a year and sending millions of people to jail, yet doing little to stop the flow of illegal substances.  The film was intended to change the way Americans think about drugs, but other than a more receptive approach to the decriminalization of marijuana in many states, the sorry fact is little has changed, with most of the money going to ever more sophisticated police weaponry, as if fighting an actual war where superior weaponry prevails in battle skirmishes, but therein lies the problem, assuming there is an enemy to be fought.  The strategy to wage war is an illusion, a diversionary tactic that takes our eyes away from the multitude of victims who need treatment from the consequences of addiction.  Instead the priority is a false political overreaction that results in arming our police forces to the teeth for SWAT team arrests, which intentionally create a racial divide, overcrowding the prison population with a targeted criminal underclass that is almost exclusively black and brown, never targeting the more affluent white communities with the majority of whites skating jail time.  This blatant racial profile has become the standard police policy across the nation, basically criminalizing drug usage in poor minority communities while excusing it in more affluent white neighborhoods.  This only leads to a criminal justice system that refuses to render anything remotely resembling justice, becoming a biased government policy that can withstand all legal challenges, where the very heart of its intent is to implement a racist drug policy that targets our most vulnerable citizens, the drug users and small-time operators, all but ignoring the big suppliers, as they’re too well shielded by interglobal corporate accounts and legal strategies that make them all but undetectable.  For all practical purposes they don’t exist, as they rarely serve prison time.  Instead we punish those at the lower end of the economic spectrum who are easy pickings, who don’t have the money to make bail, whose destitute communities have been ravaged by the drug trade, one of the few enterprises in a blighted economic wasteland that’s always open for business.  In 2016 there were 1.5 million drug arrests, where over 80% were for possession only.  At every stage of the judicial process people of color experience more discrimination, as they are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, convicted, harshly sentenced, and saddled with a lifelong criminal record, where the imprisonment rate of blacks for similar drug charges is six times that of whites.  The impact on families is significant, as one in nine black children has an incarcerated parent, compared to one in 28 Latino children, and one in 57 white children.  Just consider, for instance, that if blacks and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as whites, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40%.  This is what the war on drugs has become, a 500 percent increase in incarceration in our country that disproportionately affects poor minorities, which is basically an excuse to lock up a million black men and declare victory.  It’s significant to recall the words of those who have dedicated their lives working in the field, who end up feeling inadequate, frustrated, and hopelessly overwhelmed.  After twenty-five years of doing undercover work for the DEA, former agent Michael Levine, author of Deep Cover: The Inside Story of How DEA Infighting, Incompetence, and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War, 1990, writes:

It is both sobering and painful to realize, having personally accounted for at least three thousand criminals serving fifteen thousand years in jail, and having seized several tons of various illegal substances, that my career was meaningless and had absolutely no effect whatsoever in the so-called war on drugs.  The war itself is a fraud.

Behind the Candelabra

Scott Thorson on stage with Liberace in Las Vegas in 1979

 

Scott Thorson taking Liberace to court for palimony in 1983

 




  

BEHIND THE CANDELABRA – made for TV           B  
USA  (118 mi)  2013  d:  Steven Soderbergh 

The summit of sex—the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she, and it can ever want… a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love. 

—Liberace description by Daily Mirror columnist Cassandra (William Connor), 1956

I call this palatial kitsch. Don’t you just love that?   —Liberace (Michael Douglas)

For some reason, the intimate story of Siegfried & Roy kept coming to mind, perhaps the closest thing to the Vegas glitz and glamor of Liberace (Michael Douglas, age 68) in our current age, where one could imagine white lions and tigers peacefully laying across the bed as if they were part of the furniture.  But this is an earlier era, where Liberace was introduced as “Mr. Showmanship,” a workaholic and consummate professional who made his millions wearing outrageously flamboyant costumes including hand-designed, gold inlaid outfits, minks, capes, and ostrich feathers while showcasing plenty of gold bling in his Vegas acts that routinely featured a candelabra on his piano.  That he should attract mostly older women was perhaps a curiosity of the times, maybe wishing this was the son they never had, viewed as rich, highly successful, and living in the lavish comfort of aristocratic royalty.  Little was made of sexual orientation in the 50’s, where the term “gay” was still used to express frivolity, such as the lyrics of Judy Garland singing “Make the Yuletide gay” in Judy Garland - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - YouTube (2:30) from MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944), or Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers asking “Why do birds sing so gay?” in their 1956 hit Frankie Lymon - Why Do Fools Fall In Love (1965) - YouTube (2:19).  This film is much more successful in portraying what goes on behind closed doors than Clint Eastwood’s earlier effort J. Edgar (2011) which only hints at FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s secret homosexual love affair with his second in command, Clyde Tolson, the Associate Director of the FBI for forty years, with Tolson inheriting Hoover’s estate after he died.  Adapted from the 1988 memoir of Scott Thorson, Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace, the film is largely told from Thorson’s point of view, where Soderbergh wastes no time in the opening pickup scene in a gay bar where Scott (Matt Damon, age 42) is a tender 17-year old still under the guardianship of the state foster care system.  We can tell from the reaction of his foster family that this is certainly not the first time, but no one could have guessed what would happen next.

Scott’s friend takes him to Vegas to see a Liberace show, meeting backstage where the maestro’s roving eye, some 40 years his senior, fell for Scott, inviting him to his home, where he literally kicked out all the other house boys, replacing them with Scott, bestowing lavish gifts upon him, including expensive clothes, mink furs, gold jewelry, a gold-plated Rolls Royce on his 21^st brithday, and even a home in Vegas that Liberace co-signed.  Yes, there is something a little creepy about seeing the cosmetically enhanced, leering face of an aging Michael Douglas leaning over onto Matt Damon’s side of the bed that very first morning as he initiates their first sexual encounter, as this would legally be considered an act of rape with the underage teenager, but the tone of the film is all about how Liberace is literally smitten by this kid, like he’s a godsend, the answer to his prayers, where the two of them are quickly seen sipping champagne in the hot tub, one of Liberace’s favorite places of relaxation.  This is one boy toy Liberace didn’t want out of his sight, while his wealth and success makes him something of a father figure to the fatherless Scott.  While Liberace’s extravagant mansion is something of a museum piece itself, with a pool in the shape of a piano, not to mention 17 pianos, a casino, marble everywhere, an ermine bedspread, portraits of Liberace, and a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel painted on the ceiling with Liberace portrayed as one of the cherubs.  Despite the performances where the two leads literally lose themselves in their roles, as well as wigs and facial reconstruction, part of the problem is the undeveloped chemistry between these two stars, lacking humor and any real emotional depth, though there are various kinds of human need, but these two simply have nothing in common, where it remains a mystery how this kid could consume so much of Liberace’s life.  The film suggests both are lonely, friendless and alone, where love may express itself as much in human companionship as anything else, though Soderbergh and his two lead actors hold nothing back, as there is certainly a blatantly raw-tinged sexual presence onscreen, complete with the use of amyl nitrate poppers, which was the club culture ecstasy drug of choice at the time.

Some of the secondary characters are equally outstanding, especially the completely unrecognizable Debbie Reynolds as Liberace’s mother, still speaking in a thick Polish accent, amusingly winning big while playing the slot machines in her son’s house, but when no cash comes tumbling out, as the machine has not been refilled, she insists upon a check.  Dan Aykroyd plays Liberace’s sour-faced and brutally demanding manager, who accepts no excuses for missing stage appearances, where Liberace was a Vegas headliner for decades, even incorporating Scott into the act, garishly dressed as a chauffeur driving the performer’s rhinestone decorated Rolls Royce onstage, where he would open the door for Liberace who would emerge in an outrageously elaborate fur coat with a 16-foot train.  Also stealing the show is Rob Lowe as the sleazy and morally compromised, yet ridiculously successful Beverly Hills plastic surgeon of the stars, advertising a veritable fountain of youth, always promising to make his patients look decades younger. Perhaps the most hideous aspect of their relationship was Liberace’s insistence that Scott undergo plastic surgery to make his young protégé look more like himself, including a new chin, a nose job and enhanced cheekbones, and also an accompanying “Hollywood diet,” a cocktail of doctor-prescribed drugs that included pharmaceutical cocaine.  This eventually led to their falling out, forced to pawn most of Liberace’s lavish gifts, where Scott’s heavily out-of-control cocaine use takes a turn into the nightmarish REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000) territory.  Scott is quickly jettisoned from Liberace’s life, just like the others before him, filing a highly public $113 million dollar palimony suit that was the talk of the tabloids in 1983 but coming up empty, reduced to accepting a $95,000 out of court settlement from Liberace in a death bed reconciliation before the flamboyant performer died of AIDS in 1986.  While obviously remembering the good years in the film’s finale, it’s ironic that Scott Thorson’s life has been a mess ever since, where in 1990 he was shot five times while under the witness protection program, later spending four years in prison on drug and burglary charges, and was recently just arrested on credit card theft where he’s currently in prison awaiting sentencing, noting the prison TV doesn’t have HBO, so it may be years before he’s able to watch the film based upon his own life story.  Allegedly, still hard up for cash, he’s contemplating writing a second book about his relationship to Liberace.  While the film is explicitly gay-themed, the final outcome is anything but gay.  

Haywire

HAYWIRE                  B                     

USA  (93 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Steven Soderbergh

While Gina Carano will not make anyone forget about Jennifer Lopez as Karen Sisco in OUT OF SIGHT (1998), she may be a logical extension of her badass personality, though never reaching the elevated Pam Grier echelon.  In fact, rather than accentuate her feminine traits, she comes across as just one of the guys, a former marine/private contractor/mercenary hired for delicate operations where the best in the business is desired.  She can be counted on for her intelligence, discretion, and thorough nature, where she leaves no loose ends behind.  It doesn’t hurt that she’s also gorgeous.  Soderbergh, with his second release in the past 6 months, has hinted on retirement after wrapping up these last few films, but his signature stylization is all over this film, a sleek, fast paced action thriller that easily moves to various on-location sites around the world, where from the opening sequence Carano continually fights her way out of jams, with the pulsating, jazzy soundtrack by David Holmes.  In fact, it would fit nicely with the international globetrotting themes of the memory challenged but ballsy action of the BOURNE Trilogy (2002 – 2007), but since it shares a similar actor in Antonio Banderas, the film it likely compares to is Brian de Palma’s FEMME FATALE (2002), featuring model/actress Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in an action role, where De Palma wipes the mat with the alluring sexuality, body doubles, and a much more intricate and complicated web of deceit, an homage to Hitchcock that was off-the-wall entertaining.  This film pales in comparison, largely because Carano never explores the sex factor and tellingly doesn’t attempt much complicated dialogue or acting interaction, instead she can be counted on for terrific ass kicking sequences, more in line with her brief career as a mixed martial arts star, formerly seen as Crush in the American Gladiators (2008) television series.   

Even Tarantino, or Russ Meyer for that matter in FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (1965), have fun mixing female action with clever or humorous dialogue, but despite a B-movie script from Lem Dobbs who wrote Soderbergh’s best film, THE LIMEY (1999), there isn’t a trace of memorable dialogue here.  While entertaining, to be sure, this is not heady stuff, despite surrounding Carano with some of the top actors working today, where it’s likely to be a split decision as to how well she pulls it off.  The fight scenes were overseen by Aaron Cohen, a specialist in providing counter-terrorism training to the U.S. military.  From an opening restaurant scene gone wrong that recalls PULP FICTION (1994), Soderbergh introduces a flashback sequence where Carano pulls off a hostage rescue operation in Barcelona with the guy she’s beating the crap out of in the restaurant (Channing Tatum), where they worked successfully as partners with no hitches, but suddenly her team has inexplicably turned against her, which she discovers in another highly suspicious undercover operation in Dublin with Michael Fassbender, as she moves invisibly through a world of espionage, double agents, government cover ups, and secret identities.  Never trusting anyone, she develops a secret sense, but unlike so many of the other action movies, she doesn’t seem like a super hero, as she gets hit frequently and knocked down, even smashed against walls and windows, but she has a way of sustaining the battle until she gains the upper hand, where her action sequences look real instead of choreographed and computer enhanced.  She’s an interesting figure, running through the gamut of men in this movie, but something of a lone wolf, where the double crosses by the employers in her line of business, namely Ewen McGregor and Antonio Banderas, have a way of playing themselves out, where she has to sit tight and make her move when they least suspect it.

 

Even Michael Douglas, looking more like his father’s gruff intensity as he ages, is another player on the scene who has to cut his losses and regroup due to unexpected backroom deals that eventually lead them to the Santa Fe desert home of Carano’s father, Bill Bixby, a former marine who is not easily fooled by all this monkey business.  It’s a beautiful home with a stunning landscape, another glass-windowed, Architectural Digest pick, like the spectacular Big Sur home on the edge of the woods overlooking the ocean in THE LIMEY.  But for all the meticulous detail prevalent in Soderbergh films, the rooftop chase sequences, her miraculous escapes, the brilliant locales, the alternating time sequences, the upper tier cast of characters, the mano a mano fight to the finish on the beach, and even a steady hand behind the camera that doesn’t resort to handheld movement to capture the physicality of mood, which is instead captured by the natural grace of Carano’s fight sequences, all of this overshadows the lack of interior character, which was the biggest selling point of Terence Stamp in THE LIMEY, as he was a man driven to do the impossible.  Not so here, as Carano is simply a well-trained professional that gets double crossed, something that happens all the time in the give and take of international power struggles, corporate takeovers, and government corruption.  This heavy style over substance is the ultimate undoing of the film, though it’s perfectly enjoyable, just not particularly memorable, unless, of course, you're a teenage fanboy who prefers watching this over playing video games, where the director is attempting to tap into the YouTube generation.  Oh, and Soderbergh has 3 more films lined up in post production—so much for retirement—at least none of them are in 3D.