Reid-14

This film is a pallid mediocrity which wastes the enormous talents involved in it, including the magnificent Ms. Angelou. (One wonders, though, how being a great poet and prose writer qualifies her to direct a major feature). The true crime in this film is the dreadful script which gives the characters no development beyond shallow cliche (Drug-Addicted Urban Mom, Gentle Older Rural Man). The most annoying cliche of all is the old myth that the city kills and the country heals. What a crock. Our struggles are in our souls, not our locations, and moving back home to the country won't solve anything if you are not in a position to do the hard work to heal yourself. What a waste this movie was, considering what it could have been. If anyone wishes to see what such a movie can be if done right, also with Alfre Woodard in a starring role, give "Passion Fish" a try. It is much more truthful and far better done.

This film is a great deal of fun, though the depth of thought behind it does not match that of others by the same director. My primary comment, though, is how very poor Anna Paquin was as the voice of Sheeta. Her accent varied from American to British to New Zealandic and back again with no apparent rhyme or reason. A very bizarre experience. She also seemed to play her character with little of the backbone that the lovely girl the movie portrays actually displayed. Otherwise, a must-see for Japanese animation fans! (And I hope everyone has already seen "My Neighbor Totoro"! A truly great movie in every respect!)

You get a movie like Traffic, which attempts to be all things but ends up telling many story lines poorly and developing characters hardly at all. You get a very unsatisfying film, which also has surprisingly little of any coherency to say about drug abuse and the law enforcement surrounding it. One hopes that the confusion in our society concerning these issues did not lead Soderbergh into the mistaken belief that he was therefore somehow justified in his muddled film, which turns out to be "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."