Traffic is one of those movies where I came home excited that I had seen it.  Visually and verbally stunning, with performances that dropped my jaw, it's right up there with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and You Can Count on Me as one of my favorite films of the year.  

You go into the movie knowing about the big performances: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and of course Benicio del Toro, with this sort of tired sexiness that makes you want to jump him.  But even the small performances have the power to impress: Don Cheadle as a DEA agent, Topher Grace as a prep school drug user, or a particularly wonderful performance by Tomas Milian as General Salazar 

Stephen Soderbergh makes outstanding directorial choices.  His distinctive quick cut style and overlapping dialogue is used sparingly, and thus effectively.  He drenches the Mexico scenes in sepia tones, infuses the "upscale" La Jolla scenes with rich color, and drains the Washington D.C. scenes of all but blues, blacks and greys, rendering it sterile and corporate.  

Each scene has a certain realism about it -- the experience of using drugs, or the moment Zeta-Jones has in her husband's friend's office, or the scene where Zeta-Jones orders the duck.  I found myself interested in all of the intertwining storylines, waiting to see how they would collide, and how they would play out.  Traffic kept me interested from beginning to end. 

I particularly enjoyed the authenticity of the small touches: having senators like Orrin Hatch and Barbara Boxer play themselves, not having some John Doe fake president, and actually allowing the people who are in Mexico to speak Spanish, rather than the usual condescending English-with-a-Spanish-accent thing.  

My only criticism [this may be spoilery] is that everything is wrapped up too neatly at the end.  When you're talking about something as complicated as the Drug War, it's nice to have everything work out for the characters you've come to like, but it's not realistic in any way.  In fact, t rings the only false note in a film that almost always rings true.