Using a large canvas and a huge (and hugely talented) cast, Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan have endeavored to be as realistic and detailed as possible in their dissection of the hows and whys of North American drug trade and consumption. While its three principal storylines don't presume to constitute a comprehensive account of the subject, the shrewd choices of characters and locales manage to illuminate an excitingly diverse range of participants, from government officials and traffickers (sometimes the same thing) to earnest enforcement officers, users and incidental victims on both sides of the Mexican border and at all stations on the class scale.
Although one of the film's driving impulses is clearly to cast a skeptical (if not completely scornful) eye on the War on Drugs as long defined by the U.S. government, it is a testament to the priorities of Soderbergh and his collaborators that their first order of business was to tell their complex stories as dramatically and coherently as possible. Especially given the outsize dramatis personae, this has been accomplished in exemplary fashion; the various threads have been interwoven and balanced with extraordinary skill so that the tension and power keep steadily building, until close to the end of this nearly 2½-hour film.
First glimpsed, in bleached-out sepia tones, are Tijuana-based cops Javier Rodriguez and Manolo Sanchez, who intercept an airborne coke drop-off in the desert but are then themselves apprehended by army general Salazar, who seizes the stash. In Stateside scenes drenched in bluish hues, Ohio State Supreme Court Justice Robert Wakefield is about to be appointed the nation's new drug czar, just as his bright 16-year-old daughter, Caroline (Erika Christensen), is moving from recreational drugs into heavier stuff with her preppie boyfriend and classmates.
In bold color, determined and resourceful DEA agents Montel Gordon and Ray Castro are conducting a sting operation on San Diego–based dealer Eduardo Ruiz, whom they hope will help them nail local kingpin Carlos Ayala , whose pregnant society wife, Helena, doesn't know the nature of her husband's business.
Once these storylines are effectively set up in a way that allows many characters to become quickly well defined by presenting them in extremis, Soderbergh pushes deeper to show how the pervasiveness of drugs has poisoned the lives of everyone concerned, even if most of the characters don't actually use drugs themselves. In preparation for his job, Wakefield listens to the distilled "wisdom" of U.S. politicians at a cocktail party, and later visits the Tijuana border crossing where, in nifty candidly filmed footage, he gets a firsthand impression of the daunting task facing authorities who try to flush out smugglers on a daily basis.
On the Mexican side, the imposing, grandstanding Gen. Salazar, who enjoys a public reputation as a drug-buster, is revealed to be in on the action himself and involved in the attempt to wipe out the Tijuana cartel to the benefit of the Juarez druglord. To this end, he recruits cop Javier to capture hired assassin Francisco Flores who in turn is tortured for info that leads him, as well as Javier and partner Manolo, to fateful involvement in the case of the imprisoned Carlos Ayala and his former San Diego contact Eduardo, who has been persuaded to testify against him in U.S. court.
Although her transformation from shock over her husband's occupation to ruthless command over his operation happens rather quickly, Helena, in cahoots with her questionably motivated lawyer, Arnie Metzger, stops at nothing to keep herself in the money. In an action-suspense highlight that adroitly employs the old Hitchcock standby of the planted bomb that viewers know about but the characters do not, witness Eduardo is being led to an explosives-rigged car by Montel and Ray, only to change his mind and insist upon walking to his hotel, a decision that leads to more than one surprise.