New York Times review by Stephen Holden:‘Traffic’: Teeming Mural of a War Fought and Lost. ‘Hollywood has saved the best for last. On the last weekend
of the year comes what may turn out to be the most acclaimed
movie of the year: Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, an
updated, Americanized version of a 1989 British television
mini-series, Traffik. Soderbergh’s film, which has already
been named best picture of the year by the New York Film
Critics Circle, tackles the subject of America’s losing war
on drugs through multiple story lines and a multitude of
characters…

… “several,
interwoven thrillers, each with its own tense rhythm and
explosive payoff. What these stories add up to is something
grander and deeper than a virtuosic adventure film.” ‘