Traffik opens in a rather strange way. We see Brea (Paula Patton) confronting her boss, Waynewright (William Fichtner) about another staff reporter who swept her scoop out from under her. They have a whole back and forth about the reasoning, in which she expresses her frustration about how he takes her story, which is complex, explores the sociopolitical context around the subject, and digs into the bigger picture, and he simply gives it some dude who dumbs it down to the most barebones, simplistic, black and white reporting. I say it’s strange, not because of something someone did or said, but because the film that follows this conversation essentially gives the central topic (sex trafficking) the same treatment that Waynwright gives Brea, completely undercutting the philosophical backbone of her character by simplifying the problem into simple, cheap thrills by some dude (in this case, writer/director, Deon Taylor).
But more on that later.
The film doesn’t start proper until Brea and her boyfriend John (Omar Epps), head out to a fancy vacation home in the middle of a forested area far from the city. Not too long after their friends, Darren (Laz Alonso) and Malia (Roselyn Sánchez). Brea realizes after a bizarre gas station encounter, she ends up in the possession of a phone belonging to the head of a human trafficking ring. Upon this realization, the friends finds themselves being hunted by the group responsible.
At its heart, Traffik is a sleazy, 70s style thriller. An in-and-out in 90 minute ride that is only concerned with getting mean, dark, nasty, and keeping the audience at the edge of their seat. On that level, it actually works fine. It’s not particularly remarkable, but it’s very serviceable. A lot of that is due to two things, one if Paula Patton, who is a good and likable actor, easily able to carry the film when she’s the sole focus; the other is Dante Spinotti, the cinematographer. You may not immediately recognize his name, but if you’ve seen Manhunter, Heat, L.A. Confidential, The Insider, then you’ve seen him at work. There are some haunting shots that keep you on edge, he uses some low angles in fun ways, and his craft gives the overall film a more refined look that you don’t typically see in movies like this.
However, as moderately effective the film is as pure exploitation, it does make you wish the film had maybe thought about Brea’s words, and brought some bigger ambitions to the story. Sleazy thrillers about women in peril are a dime a dozen, but we don’t really get many films that – like Patton’s character would – actually dig deeper into the subject of sex slavery. Why is it such a prominent underground industry? What aspects of society allows it to thrive? What can society do to change it? Can it even be changed? Or is it just a branch of a much larger systemic problem that affects the world in different ways? One of the bad guys even mentions toward the end that they are providing a service not unlike what is being done to bring people things like phones, clothes, food, etc. But the film ultimately doesn’t show much interest in putting in that work, and challenge the moviegoers on an intellectual level, rather than just a visceral level.
I feel like I wouldn’t be giving Traffik as hard a time if it simply jumped right into the intensity from the get-go. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a trashy thriller, I love trashy thrillers. The thing is, when you begin your story, you have to – in a sense – provide a thesis or some idea, or throughline, and you have to see that through to the end. This films opens with the pretense of shunning simplistic stories in favor our hero’s more thorough, complex, and thoughtful mindset, but it doesn’t follow through with that philosophy at all. I didn’t have a bad time with the film, when it was meant to be thrilling, gross, and intense, I felt all those things. After a certain point, the film does become appropriately harrowing, and deeply uncomfortable when it needs to be. So, the film can be considered a minor success in what it sets out to do, even if it does stumble when it tries to pull the “actually, we’re about something very important” card.