Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

HeadlinesExotic Boring

Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

emuir-1 This film was inspired by the British mini series Traffik, and updates the story of international smuggling taking it in a different direction. The story arcs were good and the series was engrossing; however, I had a number of complaints about the "look" of the film.Too much color saturation in the Afghanistan scenes. I had to turn down the color setting almost to black and white.Most of the scenes were so badly lit that it was impossible to see what was happening. I reset the brightness as far as it would go but still could not see in the dark. A bit more lighting on the actors faces would have helped considerably.The fast "short attention span" editing. I would have preferred to spend longer with each individual story rather than fast 30 second cutting. This isn't MTV or a commercial, it is a drama.I was able to compare the mini series with the British original, and unlike the much more subtle British Traffik which painted all but one character in shades of grey, and no one was without blame for the drug traffic whether users, dealers or the politicians whose policies had allowed the trade to flourish, this being an American film the good guys were good, with one exception, and the bad guys were BAD, SUPER BAD. No ambiguities here. By moving the action to Afghanistan there was plenty of opportunity for Rambo style gung ho action. Lots of kick ass Americans shooting machine guns at everything that moved. There was no in-depth explanations for why those involved did what they did. The only sympathetic character was Adam the Chechen illegal immigrant.SPOILER AHEADSo what was the promised twist at the end? That Mike's partner in the DEA was really an informant? I worked that out in the first five minutes. Was it that he decided to stay in Seattle and take out the garbage? Or was it that Adam did not kill Ronny Cho's partner? Loose ends do not a happy viewer make.

smokehill retrievers I did enjoy most of the mini-series, though the overseas "DEA Cowboy" seQuences were just the usual Hollywood schlock, bearing no resemblance to overseas drug or other covert ops. I expect a bit of hokiness, but this was definitely in extremis and could have benefited from at least come consultant who had been there. At least then these characters could tell the difference between heroin and raw opium: the product they keep calling "heroin" in Afghanistan is obviously opium, which is indeed grown there but NEVER processed into heroin there.I'd probably have given this flick a good solid 8 as a pure action-adventure flick if it weren't for the abominable hack job obviously done to fit it into some magical six-hour block. Story arcs flew, and ended, at random, leaving bizarre loose ends all over the place. Obviously the junkie and the Tongs have some tie-in (as leverage for the DEA guy) that disappears entirely. And what really happens to "Ronnie?" Balthazar Getty obviously doesn't know, yet the Chechen basically kidnaps him, which will get him zilch, and then .....?? Ambiguity in endings is often fine, and this could have stood some, but this move just suddenly ended for no apparent reason. Obviously this was not for some artistic reason, it was just hacked to death by some idiot in one Hell of a hurry to make things fit. I think it's the most incompetent job of cutting I've ever seen anywhere, and it truly p***ed me off. This could have been a very good series if they'd given it the extra half hour it needed to sort out the subplots.

aaronwa-1 First, let me start off by saying that Traffic (the movie) w/Michael Douglas, Benecio del Toro, etc. is one of my favorite movies of all time. It truely captures the seedy underworld that IS drug trafficing.This mini-series is NOTHING like the movie. The plot is VERY weak, the character development is almost non-existant, and I'm left with no feelings whatsoever for any of the characters. I caught myself falling asleep at least a half-dozen times on the first night...not due to lack of action, but due to the fact that I just don't CARE about any of the characters and their situations.Secondly, the locations for parts of the story are supposed to take place in Seattle and 'Northwest Washington'. I *LIVE* in Seattle, and I can't for the life of me picture any of the areas depicted there as actually being in Washington State. The scene on the first night in the convienence store had an RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) ATM machine, and the lottery sign at the counter is consistent with the B.C. Lottery, not Washington State lottery. It is quite obvious to me that it was filmed in British Columbia, Canada. For goodness sake....if they're going to make a convincing story that takes place in a well-known urban area, they might as well film at least a few scenes there to convince the locals!!Do yourself a favor and rent the movie instead.

mike-320 I don't know why everyone doesn't like this miniseries so much. I have never seen the movie or any other story about this topic and I am enjoying it immensely. Since it is only 2/3 over I can't say much more but so far the story is progressing nicely and I am always entertained.