Traffik: 20th Anniversary Edition – DVD Review

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Traffik

Too many people don’t understand how narcotics get to your neighborhood dealer. Heroin doesn’t magically appear in powdered form. It takes numerous folks to grow, process, smuggle and sell the opiates that end up in your neighborhood junky’s arm. It’s a major industry except those involved save money by not worrying about tax attorneys or marketing consultants. Traffik is a six episode mini-series that involves all levels of the heroin business. The camera follows it from poppies in Pakistan to the veins of upperclass London kids. The flow is constantly interrupted at all levels by law enforcement. This is a textured tale that reminds us of the toll of getting high and why people stay in the business. Traffik: 20th Anniversary Edition gives the full story of what had been abbreviated in Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar winning adaptation.

Traffik deals with action in three locations across the globe. Pakistan is where the poppies are harvested for the resin that can be processed into heroin. Hamburg, Germany is the entry point into Europe for distribution. London, England is the destination point for a pack of kids looking for a fix. The various characters in the mini-series are linked and overlap during the six 51-minute episodes.

Fazal (Jamal Shah) is a poppy farmer in Pakistan. He gets run off his land thanks to the government officials wanting to appease the folks in England. He heads to Karachi to look for new career choice. He works up the chain in the drug empire of Tariq Butt (Talat Hussain). Fritz Muller-Scherz and Tilo Pruchner are German cops looking to take down Karl Rosshalder (George Kukura). Turns out the industrialist only has one real business making him wealthy: distributing heroin through out Europe. Rosshalder’s wife (Lindsay Duncan) has to keep up the business while plotting a way to get her husband released. He owes quite a powerful people who will kill her if they don’t get their cash. Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson) is the Home Office minister in charge of fighting drug abuse and narcotics smuggling in England. The guy seems to be level headed in his approach to combating the junk and keeping kids off the smack. Instead of running PSAs featuring actors posing as junkies, he wants real abusers to testify to what drugs did to them. Although he doesn’t have to go to far for testimonials. Turns out his daughter (Julia Ormond) is hooked. Can he really clean up the country if his own daughter doesn’t see the evil?

The crossing of characters creates the sparks on the screen. Lithgow’s visit prompts the Pakistan authorities to kill the valuable poppy fields and put Fazal on the road. During the course of the show, Lithgow discovers that there’s a racket being worked by the drug dealers and the Pakistani officials. The government takes in large sums of money from foreign countries such as England and America to wage a war on the drug cartels. After they make a publicized raid, they sell back the drugs to the kingpins. The kingpins ship it out and make their money. The only people who end up getting busted are low level workers who are merely pawns in this get rich quick scheme. Fazal falls into this fatal trap when he oversteps his authority with Tariq. In Hamburg, Rosshalder’s wife goes from a sweet lady to Lady MacBeth as she plots to assassinate her husband’s key witness and resume the heroin shipments from Fazal. She goes cold blooded over the course of the six episodes.

Lithgow changes from believing that this problem can be stopped by nipping it in the bud back in Pakistan. Through his daughter’s experiences, he realizes that there will always be an opium trade. He can’t stop the farmers. The only hope for stopping its scourge is to make sure people don’t want to numb themselves from society with drugs. The mini-series does not glamorize drug usage. Watching one addict have to slap his private parts to get access to his last good vein ought to be a warning to any kids wanting to chase the dragon. Ormond prefers to shoot up around her feet.

While Traffik lacks the star power of Traffic, it’s a much better production. Over the course of over five hours, the story plays out just right. Nothing seems rushed. Fazal reminds us that there are people at the bottom of this drug chain that get abused the most by the system. His life is torn apart and destroyed by everyone on the chain. He gets his revenge at the end instead of being just a pawn in the industry. In the world of entertainment about heroin, Traffik rates up with The French Connection, Man With the Golden Arm and The Wire.

The video is 1.33:1 full frame. The transfer is taken from a video master so it’s not that sharp on the details. They have tweaked it so it looks better than the previous DVD release. The audio is Dolby Digital 2.0. It’s not a mix that will cause you to bust out the full surround speakers.

The Courier Extended UK Broadcast (63:27) adds 12 minutes to the final episode that was shown on PBS. This is the way to watch it.

The Making of Traffik (12:42) has writer Simon Moore and producer Brian Eastman discuss the project. They learned while in Pakistan that it doesn’t take a real laboratory to make smack.

From Traffik to Traffic is a text essay explaining the adaptation process

Photo Gallery (1:30) montage of images from the mini-series

Cast Filmographies for Bill Paterson, Lindsay Duncan and Julia Ormond. Did you know that Bill Paterson was in Spice World?

Traffik: 20th Anniversary Edition dares to take us around the globe with numerous characters yet doesn’t lose sense of its core story. This is a tight tale of about the plight of those in the heroin trade. No level in the business is sparred a view. The price earned and the cost paid for the white powder is fully explored. The mini-series is more compelling than the Oscar winning movie. Even after 20 years, Traffik still contains a topic that’s active today with the heroin trade out of Pakistan-Afghanistan area at record highs. This is still a story for today and not a quaint tale of yesterday.


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Acorn Media presents Traffik: 20th Anniversary Edition. Starring: Jamal Shah, Talat Hussain, Fritz Muller-Scherz, Tilo Pruchner, Lindsay Duncan, Bill Paterson and Julia Ormond. Boxset contents: 6 episodes on 2 DVDs. Directed by: Alastair Reid. Written by: Simon Moore. Released on DVD: Sept. 29. Available at Amazon.com

Joe Corey is the writer and director of "Danger! Health Films" currently streaming on Night Flight and Amazon Prime. He's the author of "The Seven Secrets of Great Walmart People Greeters." This is the last how to get a job book you'll ever need. He was Associate Producer of the documentary "Moving Midway." He's worked as local crew on several reality shows including Candid Camera, American's Most Wanted, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ESPN's Gaters. He's been featured on The Today Show and CBS's 48 Hours. Dom DeLuise once said, "Joe, you look like an axe murderer." He was in charge of research and programming at the Moving Image Archive.