Soderbergh’s most serious, issue-driven film yet has a hell of a lot
going for it, but there’s a nagging sense of disappointment too.
Nothing necessarily wrong with having all the story strands tend
schematically towards a central thesis (the unwinnability of the
drugs war), but at least two of them (involving Zeta-Jones, who picks up
the reins of her husband’s cocaine operation, and Christensen, as the
addicted daughter of Douglas’ narcotics czar) lose their internal
plausibility along the way. Still, it’s seamlessly filmed and
stunningly well performed, especially by Cheadle and Del Toro as cops
north and south of the Mexican border.
