Enormously ambitious and masterfully made, Traffic represents docudrama-style storytelling at a very high level.

It is a remarkable achievement in filmmaking, a beautiful and brutal work.

A flat-out electrifying experience.

Borderline brilliant. Tackles the war on drugs from a kaleidoscope of perspectives.

The rare Hollywood epic that dares to entertain an audience by engaging the world.

In the scorching new film Traffic, director Steven Soderbergh captures the hypocrisy -- and tragedy -- of the nation's unwinnable war on drugs. Traffic is a huge, determined movie in every way.

There's not a smarter, more demanding American film from the past year.

A stunning film.

Soderbergh's story, from a screenplay by Stephen Gaghan, cuts between these characters so smoothly that even a fairly complex scenario remains clear and charged with tension.

It's a thriller that really thrills, a drama that really engages, a portrait of a world and system out of joint that is painfully convincing and totally engrossing from the first simmering minute to the last explosive second.

Explosive entertainment, with the tension and volatility of its subject matter.

Traffic is a riveting, semi-documentary drama, and yet calling it that is a disservice to just how suspenseful and stylish an entertainment it is.

Traffic doesn’t quite come to a full emotional boil at the end. Soderbergh is too knowing to offer easy solutions. But what a journey it takes us on: disturbing, exciting, completely absorbing.

Sinfully watchable ensemble movie.