![]() Today, I'd rank Soderbergh with the best active American moviemakers. That's the source of the secret bond linking his people: among characters as seemingly disparate as video-voyeur Graham in "sex, lies and videotape," tormented writer Franz Kafka in "Kafka," depression kid Aaron Kurlander in "King of the Hill" and all the heroes and heroines of his thrillers, especially Roberts' Brockovich and Del Toro's alienated "Traffic' cop. Soderbergh handles this crisis of vision in many different ways: romantically in "sex, lies & videotape," nightmarishly in "Kafka," lyrically in "King of the Hill," absurdly in "Schizopolis," humorously in "Gray's Anatomy" and with blistering tension, wit and excitement in the thrillers. There's an emotional link among all Soderbergh's films, thrillers and non-thrillers alike: a preoccupation with loners and social injustice, with outsiders who see the corruption, hypocrisies, absurdities and cruelties of the world more clearly than the people trapped in its routines. Based on Simon Moore's "Traffik," the better-written, landmark 1990 British TV series, this virtuoso piece of multistranded storytelling is a triple-decker version of classic gritty '70s drug thrillers like "The French Connection." As for "Traffic," it's notably objective, considering its incendiary subject. "Brockovich" is a movie that strenuously avoids sentimentality and Roberts' sexy, blunt and indefatigable Erin is a star turn that's just right for the movie and not unlike its real-life model. "Traffic" has been called confused and over-moralistic, "Brockovich" attacked as a predictable little-guys-vs.-big-power courtroom drama with too much Julia Roberts cheesecake. I loved both "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic, but they don't lack detractors. movie, from the evocative smoggy, sunny locations to its memorable anti-hero and villain: unstoppable ex-con Dave Wilson and sleazy record mogul Terry Valentine, played by '60s icons Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda. "The Limey" - with "Traffic," probably his most thrilling thriller - is an explosively effective update of the great one-man's-revenge shockers of 30 years ago, like 1967's "Point Blank" and 1970's "Get Carter." You only have to compare "The Limey," with its flawless pace and searing performances, to last year's feeble Sylvester Stallone remake of "Get Carter" or to "Payback," the ridiculous 1999 Mel Gibson remake of "Point Blank," to see how smashingly well Soderbergh's film works. "Out of Sight," a romantic comedy heist movie from Elmore Leonard's novel, harks back to noir's heyday - especially in the smoky Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall style badinage between stars Clooney and Jennifer Lopez - but it's also full of sly contemporary references and modern jokes. "The Underneath" is a fairly close remake of Robert Siodmak and Daniel Fuchs' classic 1949 heist noir, "Criss Cross," this time with contemporary edge and psychological twists. Though Soderbergh rarely writes his own scripts solo these days (as he did with "sex, lies and videotape" and the 1995 satire "Schizopolis"), his touch is always evident, his aptitude for reinvigorating old styles and breathing life into familiar plots. culture and hypocrisy in "The Limey," the legal system in "Erin Brockovich" and the drug wars in "Traffic" - he has also developed fascinating ways to say them. If he has interesting things to say about people and society - the underworld in "Out of Sight," L.A. Soderbergh has become one American moviemaker who seems in love with the whole process of moviemaking. Sharp, sensitive, sympatico, his work with his casts has given us at least two of this year's most talked about performances: Julia Roberts as brassy, feisty giant-killer Erin Brockovich and Benicio Del Toro as beleaguered baggy-eyed Tijuana cop Javier Rodriguez in "Traffic." And, with this intimate involvement, he has evolved distinctive styles of editing (alternately percussive, disruptive and dreamy, as in "The Limey" seamlessly weaving together disparate events and times, as in "The Underneath" and "Traffic"), of shooting (mixing the quasi-documentary realism that dominates "Traffic" and "Erin Brockovich" with the stylish visuals and dark wit that keynote "Out of Sight" and "The Limey"), and of directing actors.
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