Cast: John Simm, Lorraine Pilkington, Shaun Parkes, Danny Dyer, Nicola Reynolds, Dean Davies
Director: Justin Kerrigan
Producers: Emer McCourt, Alain Niblio
Screenplay: Justin Kerrigan
Cinematography: Dave Bennett
Music: Mathew Herbert, Rob Mellow
U.S. Distributor: Miramax Films
"I'm having the best time [doing drugs] and feeling the music." So says one of the five main characters in Justin Kerrigan's Human Traffic, and that sentiment goes a long way towards summarizing the attitude of the film. Although Kerrigan doesn't set out to make a pro-drugs feature, it's reasonable to argue that that's what he ends up with. Human Traffic embraces the Epicurean philosophy of "Eat, drink, and be merry..." These characters live in the moment, without a concern for the future. It's a dead-end existence, where the weekend's parties define the reason for enduring the work week. And, while Kerrigan doesn't completely ignore the potential downside of doing drugs - the paranoia that results from coming down off the high - his film never addresses, either directly or indirectly, the fact that dissolute lifestyles like those embraced by the five protagonists often lead to unsavory ends.
I'm not accusing Kerrigan of being socially irresponsible, because, as a filmmaker, his responsibility is to present his vision, not to teach a lesson. However, by adopting this approach, he robs the movie of potential dramatic tension. Human Traffic becomes a sporadically interesting glimpse into the drug-addled rave-and-party culture, but there's little more to the film beyond that. It's a fly-on-the-wall perspective of how people act when their inhibitions have been stripped away. The characters are defined by how they perform while under the influence; we are given only a momentary impression of them when they're not high, and it isn't a pretty picture.
Kerrigan introduces us to five Cardiff twentysomething friends: Jip (John Simm), who is suffering from ecstasy-induced impotence; Lulu (Lorraine), his "clubbing buddy"; Koop (Shaun Parkes), his best male mate; Nina (Nicola Reynolds), Koop's girlfriend; and Moff (Danny Dyer), a Star Wars fanatic who draws out Koop's jealous nature by eyeing Nina. Human Traffic follows this quintet, plus Nina's younger brother, Lee (Dean Davies), through a weekend that begins with a raucous Friday night/Saturday morning party and ends with a quiet Sunday afternoon. Kerrigan's style nimbly mixes fantasy with reality, blending dreams and visions with what's really happening to the characters. However, while this approach is clever at first, it wears out its welcome before the film reaches its conclusion.
Human Traffic was heavily influenced by Trainspotting and the films of Quentin Tarantino. Kerrigan manages to divorce himself somewhat from those earlier movies by adopting a unique viewpoint, but Human Traffic is not a project of great innovation. For example, there's an ongoing discussion about the drug culture of Star Wars that could have been lifted from Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction (and bears a passing resemblance to Tarantino's Top Gun monologue in Sleep With Me). And many of the fantasy/reality sequences stir memories of similarly bizarre moments in Trainspotting. However, unlike Danny Boyle and Tarantino, Kerrigan can't quite put it all together. He has some good ideas that result in inspired scenes, but the story - at least what there is of a story - is flaccid, and the characters are porously presented and developed. The director may sympathize with them, but he never gets the audience to that point.
Verisimilitude is Human Traffic's greatest strength. Kerrigan wanted the movie to be an unflinching portrayal of a night in the life of five Cardiff youths, and that's basically what he gets. One of his requirements for the actors was that each of them had to have taken drugs and experienced the lifestyle of the character he or she was playing. So, in a way, Human Traffic functions as a pseudo-documentary with narrative techniques blended in (such as the romantic attraction between Jip and Lulu). To that extent, the movie is worth seeing as an anthropological curiosity, but, as a fully-formed feature film, it's lacking in a few key categories.
© 2000 James Berardinelli