Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas

I remember being in London for a brief period of time in early-2001. grateful for taking a few hours to check out the highly-regarded Traffic (2000) in a theater there. The film should be viewed as a bird's eye view of the war on drugs, rather than an in-depth exposé. 

Starring Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Don Cheadle, Dennis Quaid, Jacob Vargas, and plenty more quality actors, this film is a virtuoso showcase of director Steven Soderbergh's talents. 

Soderbergh, unfortunately, has often been upstaged by Quentin Tarantino, especially during the mid-1990s through the middle of last decade. I believe Soderbergh to be the much superior talent over time, though. And this film serves as clear-cut evidence. 

While many have argued that this film did not hit as many political nails on the head about the drug trade as the HBO series, The Wire, in reality Soderbergh seems much more focused on the character development and original style of shooting, which is fine by me.