One of the best movies I have seen in a long time is out in theaters now.

Traffic follows three different story lines, all involved in different aspects of the United States' drug trade.

It starts with two cops, including Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro), making a drug bust in the Mexican desert. Then the focus moves to an Ohio Supreme Court Justice, Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), who has just been appointed to lead the president's war on drugs. At the same time this is happening, a drug lord in California is being arrested in front of his country club wife, Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

Del Toro's character soon has us guessing whose side he is on: the Americans trying to stop the imported cocaine, or the corrupt Mexican general for whom he works. Douglas finds himself trying to stop a drug epidemic while his16-year-old daughter is shooting up in her bathroom. Zeta-Jones goes from a drug lord's innocent wife to the sole force keeping his business alive.

Traffic doesn't take a rabid anti-drug stance; it only seeks to show us the source of our country's heroin and cocaine, and people's involvement along the way.

— by Emily Morris