Search - Traffik on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Violence, Adult Situations, Not For Children, Substance Abuse Movie Release: 1989 DVD Release: 06/26/2001 Format: DVD Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 2 Number of Discs: 2 Run Time: 5 hrs 25 mins Studio: Acorn Media Members Wishing: 3 Genres: Crime, Crime Drama, Addiction Drama See Also: Traffik [20th Anniversary Edition]

This four-hour, six-episode British miniseries, broadcast on Channel 4 in 1989 and in America on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre in 1990, provided the basis for Traffic, Steven Soderbergh's 2000 Oscar winner. Though Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan borrowed much of their plot and structure from the original, Traffik focuses on the European drug trade instead of the American one and utilizes England, Germany, and Pakistan as its major settings. One of the three primary plot strands involves Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson), a member of the British Parliament, who discovers that his daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond), is a heroin addict despite the fact that he leads the country's Drug Abuse Committee. In a parallel story line, Helen Rosshalde (Lindsay Duncan), the British wife of German drug smuggler Karl Rosshalde (George Kukura), must take over her husband's illegal operations after an associate turns state's evidence and Karl goes on trial. In the third interwoven segment, and the one that diverges the farthest from the plot of the American film, Pakistani poppy farmer Fazel (Jamal Shah) ingratiates himself to drug overlord Tariq Butt (Talat Hussain) in order to support his family after the Pakistani government, at the insistence of Lithgow and other British officials, cracks down on the subsistence-level farmers who supply the heroin trade with its raw materials. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Bill Paterson - Jack Lithgow
Julia Ormond - Caroline Lithgow
Linda Bassett - Rachel
Lindsay Duncan - Helen Rosshalde
Fritz Muller-Scherz - Ulli
Jamal Shah - Fazal
Talat Hussain - Tariq Butt

The five-hour miniseries Traffik gets stretched out onto two enthralling discs for this DVD release. A gripping tale that takes you deep inside the international drug trade, this BBC production became the basis for the excellent Steven Soderbergh movie Traffic. Both the audio and visual transfers are first-rate but tech hounds should keep in mind that Traffik was produced for the small screen and won't show off your flashy home entertainment system the way that a theatrical blockbuster like The Matrix will. The DVD includes interviews with screenwriter Simon Moore and series producer Brian Eastman, while a featurette explains how a TV series that spanned Britain, Germany, and Pakistan was turned into a movie set in America and Mexico. Don't believe the revisionist reviews that claim this TV series is infinitely deeper and more complex than the movie, each have their relative strengths and succeed on their own merits. ~ Nick Dedina, All Movie Guide