Senator Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas) opens the door. There are butterflies in his stomach as he looks out into the crowded White House newsroom. He is about to be sworn in as the United Stated Drug Enforcement Czar. He rumbles that through his mind as he wonders what that job means. His stomach groans as he thinks of how much strain this job will have on his wife (Amy Irving) and daughter.

Meanwhile in another part of the United States, a young Caroline Wakefield (played by newcomer Erika Christensen), daughter of Robert, sits down with her boyfriend Seth (played by that 70’s Show’s Topher Grace). Seth asks Caroline if she has ever freebased. He talks that it’s the most amazing high. Seth pulls out a thin piece of aluminum foil and pours some white powder onto it. Caroline looks in awe as Seth ignites the foil from underneath and offers her a straw. “Suck in as much of the smoke as you can,” he says. Caroline takes it in. You hear the audience grunt and fidget when Caroline flops down on the bed starry eyed as Seth smiles.

Around the same time in Mexico, a cop (Benicio Del Toro) is struggling with the drug standoffs in his small town. The cop digs his fingers into his partially curly hair as he thinks about his partner and the drug payoffs haunting him. He knows he is going to plunge headlong into a conflict with the Mexican militia.

Yet another occurrence happens in California, when a six-month pregnant woman (Catherine Zeta Jones) screams as he husband (Steven Bauer) is hauled off in handcuffs. Practically falling she pleads for the police to tell her why they are taking her husband. An hour later, the woman is visited by her lawyer (Dennis Quaid). He lays down the law and the revelation that her husband is a drug smuggler. She shrieks.

The final circling story involves two LA detectives (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman) working narcotics who are moving in on a supposed drug dealer (Miguel Ferrer). The detectives slip up causing a foot chase and a gun stand off. The dealer is eventually caught and as his incarceration begins he will unravel some of the seediest information these detectives have ever heard in their careers.

Welcome to Steven Soderbergh’s TRAFFIC.

Traffic is so gut-wrenching and stomach turning to encompass at times that you often forget it’s a Hollywood presentation. Coming from a generation that seems to have a conflict with the drug angle, I found the Caroline story to be the hardest to take. Newcomer Erika Christensen does such a engulfing performance that you did believe this rich private school teen was dissolving into a desperate junkie. On top of this performance you have Michael Douglas (one of our best actors) eventually imploding when it’s revealed that his daughter may be beyond saving. It was so incredible to see how this story moved me so. I liked the other stories which brought in the different sides of the drug issue but the “Wakefield Crisis” was unforgettable. As the Robert Wakefield states in the film, “How can we declare war on this problem when our sons and daughters may be the enemy?”

Besides the Wakefield story I liked how Soderbergh tried so hard to make some of the drug stings and operations as real as possible. When the cops move in on the drug dealer in LA I could have sworn it was an episode of COPS.

I know a lot of viewers of this film are going to have troubles with the washed out style of the Mexican themed side but if you can get past that camera trick you do see an incredible performance from Benicio De Toro. Del Toro’s crooning and burnt out persona really makes his bewildered cop interesting.

The weakest link in this film I found was the pregnant woman. I found it to be to Hollywood. I mean you have the sleazy lawyer looking to move in on his rich client’s wife. You have her doing all she can to save the life of her child. Is this Hollywood’s idea of a strong woman? Why can’t she fall to pieces instead all of a sudden assuming her slimy husband’s persona? This aspect of the story really made me doubt the film’s pacing. In some ways it made me yearn for the Wakefield scenes but in other circumstances I really didn’t care.

This brings me to my biggest peeve of this film. It lies in the film’s pacing. For your average movie-goer this film will snail along and may even anger some people. For others it may teach them a lesson. I guess I will leave it to the box-office judge and movie-goer jury.

(4 of 5) So Says the Soothsayer.