2000: Traffic

Screenplay by Stephen Gaghan
Adapted from the teleplay Traffik by Simon Moore

Several different aspects of drug trafficking are explored through the stories of the sellers and buyers perpetuating it as well as the law enforcement and politicians trying to stop it.

Traffik is a 6-hour British mini-series that focuses on smuggling drugs from Pakistan into Germany and the UK, whereas Traffic is a 2-and-a-half-hour American movie that focuses on smuggling drugs from Mexico into the US. So while for the most part the storylines were fairly comparable, many of the details were altered to facilitate the change in location, or simplified to facilitate the change in length. Overall, the stories about the politician waging a war on drugs with a daughter who's an addict, about the drug lord disguising as a legitimate businessman whose wife struggles to take over for him when he's arrested, and about the police obsessed with catching the wife, are quite similar in both versions. However, both versions also have another storyline that is barely recognizable as equivalent, and what the movie did with it kind of bothered me.

The mini-series focuses quite a bit on Pakistan, and how easy it is for poor farmers to make a lot of money growing opium there. It follows one farmer in particular, who is forced to find other work when his opium fields are burned, and ends up working for a heroin manufacturer/distributor who deals with the businessman who was arrested. I thought it was very interesting how the mini-series, while mostly portraying the horrors of heroin, also pointed out that trying to get at the root of the problem by going after poor farmers is both counter-productive and cruel. The movie's equivalent storyline is about police in Mexico who find out that the head of the army, who is professedly cracking down on the drug cartels, is really in league with one of them, and is just helping them wipe out the competition. It seemed to me that the movie missed an opportunity to explore the earlier stages of the drug trade and how those people were affected by changes in policy, as the mini-series did so effectively. The movie doesn't really ever show where the drugs originally come from, which was a huge part of the source material. So I was a little disappointed in that.

Otherwise, though, I thought this was a pretty good adaptation. It was fascinating to note the things that had to be modified, and the things that could stay the same, given the change from Europe and the Middle East to North America. I liked how the mini-series went more in-depth, but I also liked how the movie kept the story moving (it certainly didn't feel as long as it was). So both versions work.

And now my respite from movies I've blogged about before must come to an end with Best Picture winner A Beautiful Mind, based on the book by Sylvia Nasar. So stay tuned for that.