Arresting Developments
I was tired heading into Act Three of Traffik. The novelty had worn off, and whatever dashes of style that writer/director Deon Taylor brought to his city-couple-in-small-town-danger thriller, it seemed, wouldn't be enough to save this gussied-up chase-through-the-woods picture. The film's title and premise hint at an international sex-slave ring, but with a half-hour to go, the strongest connection I could draw was Paula Patton running around in a tight, dirty red top. Few would have blamed me for cutting and running.
This, my friends, is why you never, ever, ever walk out of a movie before it's over. Though Taylor subconsciously homages The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and its myriad imitators) throughout, Traffik stops just short of settling for a horror climax in which the beautiful, bloody, half-naked girl kills the bad guys and stomps out a global conspiracy with her will to live and a well-swung axe.
Let's rewind.
Brea (Patton) and John (Omar Epps) are a mid-thirties couple on the verge of getting married. John's best friend, a fast-talking, trouble-making sports agent named Darren (Laz Alonso), gives them the keys to the Sacramento mansion where his clients luxuriate in their off time. On their winding drive up the mountains, John and Brea stop to refuel and, of course, end up at a horror-movie gas station. Between the shifty cashier, the leering biker gang out front, and the strung-out waif dropping ominous clues to Brea in the bathroom, our heroes should very well have headed back home and asked Darren if their palatial getaway had a helipad they could use instead.
But, no, the movie continues on up the mountain, where Brea and John discover they're not alone. I won't dive further into plot developments, except to say that not everyone lives through the inevitable home siege initiated by a mid-level pimp (Luke Goss) on a mission to get back evidence of the titular sex-trafficking organization. Instead, I'd like to talk about the three bright, shining keys to Traffik's success.
The first is Patton. Her performance teetered on annoying for much of the film. Brea, ostensibly a respected and very intelligent journalist, acts like a giddy, guy-fantasy girl right up to the moment when all hell breaks loose. Patton plays her as airy, seemingly always on the verge of hysterics (similar to the reasons people made fun of Jennifer Love Hewitt in the 90s). In the end, though, as Brea comes to terms with what she's really up against, and the life-altering choice she makes in order to confront it, you can see wisdom flood into Patton's eyes. Intentional or not, the filmmakers give us a character who embodies Traffik's mission statement: beneath the comparably ridiculous lives led by so many Americans lies an undercurrent of human exploitation and misery that, once seen, cannot be scrubbed from the soul.
Speaking of soul, cinematographer Dante Spinotti lights the cosmic spark that elevates Taylor's writing and direction. The veteran DP brings the same "A" game to this $5 million indie as he did to mainstream powerhouses like Heat and the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp. His technique evolves with the story, framing and lighting earlier scenes involving a circle of well-to-do friends with all the aspirational gloss of a casino-resort commercial; later, as Brea sinks into the gooey, black depths of conspiracy, Spinotti gets down in the muck with her (and drags us along, gasping), only to emerge with a tarnished version of that initial carefree aesthetic. In transition, eagle-eyed viewers will catch an homage to L.A. Confidential's misty, back-lit climax in which the villains prepare to close in for the kill--another Spinotti special.
I mentioned before that Traffik's premise was in danger of being lost somewhere in the second act. Fortunately, Taylor doesn't let us off the hook, and jumps genres on a dime in the final stretch. Brea comes face to face with the horrors of modern-day slavery; as she points out to another character late in the film, the technology might have changed, but the deplorable practice is practically as old as human history. Taylor doesn't turn his thriller into a "Message Movie" per se, but he makes it impossible to dismiss Traffik as a disposable joyride in which good triumphs over evil. By the time the credits role, I dare say you'll be compelled to find out what you can do to knee-cap this very real global epidemic.
The movie is far from perfect. We are presented with two instances of police assistance showing up way too quickly (like, Harold & Kumar quickly); there's the missing-sat-phone-case incident; and Darren's secret coke habit manifests in a way that is both inconvenient and unintentionally (?) hilarious. There's also not enough Missi Pyle in the film. This is wholly a matter of personal bias, but I could watch an entire film about her local-sherrif character (true in her early scenes--doubly so by the end).
So, yes, on first viewing, Traffik was just compelling enough for me to be disappointed that the second act appeared to devolve into a movie I'd seen a hundred times before. But that last half-hour--damn, it's good. I tend to rate thrillers based on how many times I reflexively go hand-to-mouth in shock. Taylor got me twice. More importantly, at the end, I put my hand over my heart in a rare display of exhilaration and indescribable sadness.