Cheap Traffik - Miniseries (DVD) (Alastair Reid) Price

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Customer Reviews of Traffik - Miniseries

From a time when C4 produced quality television...
"Traffik" written by Simon Moore and directed by Alastair Reid is a milestone in recent British television history. It is a beautifully crafted and terrifying vision of the international drugs trade and the effect this trade has on different individuals. It destroys the myth from a Western European viewpoint that heroin begins and ends its life in areas of urban decay and dislocation and gives us an unemotional snapshot of the whole process of its production.
Steven Soderbergh's US adaptation was always going to fail to reach the heights of its British counterpart (although it was a highly worthy effort), and an issue and narrative of this scale needed six hours (at least) to give it gravitas. Each character in "Traffik" is well developed and expertly played: Bill Patterson's Jack Lithgow, the stubborn drugs czar who fails to comprehend the problem he is tasked with solving while simultaneously watching his college educated daughter (Julia Ormond) slip further into heroin addiction; Lindsay Duncan as a drug importer's wife who plays the Lady Macbeth role much more effectively than Catherine Zeta Jones in "Traffic"; Jamal Shah as Fazal, opium farmer turned heroin producer and the closest thing the audience has to having it's conscience openly voiced; Fritz Muller Scherz's single minded Hamburg cop, out to bust the suppliers and dealers no matter what the cost.
One of the main strengths of this mini series is that in never uses too many quick emotional taglines. The viewer is sucked into the storyline of each character and is constantly forced to re-assess their previous assumptions. Fazal is a particularly good example of this. By the final episode we finally see Moore and Reid create some brilliantly gut wrenching moments: Fazal's vengeance for his wife's death against his drug lord patron (Tallat Hussain) via a heroin filled syringe and Jack's final fall and redemption give the series a depth the US version could only aspire to.
The other strengths of the series are too numerous to mention. Aside from the main characters there is excellent support from Linda Bassett, George Kukura, Tilo Pruckner and for my money, Ronan Vibert as Caroline's (Julia Ormaond) drug supplier, Lee.
On the technical front, scenes in Hamburg and London are filtered in a cold cyan while those in Pakistan are given a warm ochre only helping to underline the claustrophobia of the slums and mansions of Karachi and the general corruption that permeates them. Add to this a brilliantly evocative soundtrack you have one of the best drama series to be produced in Britain in many years.

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looks less polished, feels more true & sympathetic
By comparing the series to the movie, it's easy to be a little unfair to both: the series highlights what the movie had to sacrifice, for time and audience assumptions (perhaps); and I guess Soderbergh's extraordinary direction (and Mirrione's editing) could make anyone else's knitting look a little loose, especially a TV mini-series from a very 1980-something Britain. So my advice would be to watch the series as a complementary experience, and try to steer clear of point-scoring.

Watch Traffik as a story that feels all-too-true, and allow yourself to be pulled through an unfolding of all the extraordinary stories that we are so rarely shown about heroin. I love the way it makes you re-evaluate whatever you thought you knew or felt about the drug dilemma. It's a great example of revealing the way issues look from different sides, and through unexpected lenses, without becoming boring or lecturing.

Bill Paterson is agonizingly believable, and impossible to look away from. And the DVD's extra interviews add real value and interest (with more insights than the standard infomercial).

As a sucker for film with dts and sparkly looks, I too had to get over the slight lack of polish - but it didn't take long. Harder was the first few minutes of the clunkily-dubbed German cops - I really thought I'd bought a lemon. So grit your teeth, and hang on, and it will get much, much better.

(By the way, if you like this, look out for 'Edge of Darkness', another character-driven British miniseries, with a stonkingly great performance by Bob Peck - I don't know if it's coming to DVD, or will survive without looking too dated, but I'm keeping my eyes open...)

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Definitely better than the Hollywood production
I was one of the few people in the world who watched this mini-series before the Hollywood production. I must admit the Hollywood version was excellent as well, considering the fact that it didn't have time to build up on characters. This miniseries is one of the most gripping and well-made productions ever. Although it is six hours long, you don't feel that it is and don't even remember looking at the clock while watching it. The lengths at which the production team has gone through to make sure everything looks authentic is admirable. This mini-series was filmed at a time when Pakistan was struggling with its poppy production. I'm glad to say that Pakistan has successfully rooted out the poppy cultivation within its borders, thanks to efforts made by this movie and the like. However, Afghanistan has more than made up for the loss.
Overall, an excellent movie, except for a few overdone scenes, especially the last dramatic climactic scene.