Traffik movie review & film summary (2018)

Brea and John make it to their destination after a mildly thrilling chase scene thrown in specifically for the gearheads in the audience. After an afternoon of getting freaky in the great outdoors, Brea and John are unexpectedly visited by Darren and his latest flame Malia (Roselyn Sanchez). Darren is high and so infuriating that you almost wish someone would shoot him in the head. Be careful what you wish for, as the old adage goes. The foursome engage in a big argument where secrets come out and Malia gets angry. Brea is also angry, so it looks like John’s plans to propose to her are gone with the wind.

Notice I haven’t said anything about sexual slavery. The movie hasn’t either at this point, and we’re almost halfway through its runtime. The aforementioned misplaced cell phone rings and when Brea fetches it from her bag, she realizes it belongs to the woman in the restroom. She also recalls the cryptic message the woman said, a message that turns out to be the phone’s code. Once unlocked, the phone yields hundreds of pictures of beaten women, including the original owner of the phone. She shows up almost immediately to retrieve it from Brea.

Brea refuses the woman’s request. She wants to use the phone’s contents to write the big front-page story that will get her job reinstated. Despite warnings from her visitor that the people in charge will kill everybody, Brea stubbornly refuses to give up the phone. She’s not down with giving it up even after people start getting their brains blown out by the evil bikers. This leads to an increasingly ridiculous set of events where Brea imitates the Scream Queens of yore by doing incredibly stupid things. Most of the cast gets graphically murdered before Brea is captured and readied to be sold to the highest bidder. Brea’s capture is underscored by, I kid you not, Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit.” As Miss Simone wails about lynched Black people, a smirking Missi Pyle walks in slo-mo toward the camera. I have no idea why Taylor, an African-American director, thought this was a good idea.

“Traffik”’s resolution is as absurd as everything else. After all that killing and violence, it’s journalism that saves the day and paves the way for a potential sequel. The credits roll atop upside down footage of the California Freeway, which makes about as much sense as anything else in this offensive fiasco.