I would post my own review, but it would be long. Rather, here's stanley Kaufman reviews, and his problems with the film are mine precisely.
TNR Review
Though I'd also mention the annoying colored-filstock.
Incidentally, I expect that many potential filmgoers might not want to see Traffic because they suspect it will be either art-house, or preachy and polemical, or both.
In fact, the film is very commercial in most aspects. There's quite a bit of real belly laughs, especially from the Mutt-and-Jeff cop team of Don Cheadle and that Guzman actor (the really ugly Mexican-American guy with the pug nose). The film dabbles in various commercial genres, being partly thriller, partly crime movie, partly detective movie, partly Sally Field "Now Without My Daugher" Lifetime parent-in-anguish movie, and partly corridor-of-power movie.
The movie's chief bit of art-house-ishness is its trilogy-of-interrelated-tales structure, but each tale is itself fairly conventional and commercial.
In other words: Don't avoid this film because you think it will be yet another well-meaning, but utterly boring, Hollywood preach-fest. It works well as pure entertainment, which is the only thing I care about.
