Benicio Del Toro: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Javier Rodríguez - Traffic (2000)

Speaking of weird directorial careers, Steven Soderbergh might take the biscuit for the most wildly vacillating choice of projects. In the past few years he's been behind the camera of male stripper drama Magic Mike, a Liberace biopic, psychological thriller Side Effects and caper movie Ocean's 13. The first time the director caught up with Benicio del Toro, meanwhile, was one of his earliest, biggest success, more on the Contagion side of things than Behind The Candelabra. 2000's Traffic, adapted from the 1989 Channel 4 miniseries Traffik, is an epic - and epically grim - based-on-true film about every aspect of the international drug trade. Across its 148 minute run time the film interweaves numerous story lines, including Michael Douglas as a hardline conservative drugs struggling with the realities of Reagan's War On Drugs, Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman as DEA agents who unwittingly tear a family apart when they arrest an organised crime kingpin, but the worst (ie best) is saved for del Toro's plot. As Mexican police officer Javier Rodriguez, we get to see the modern-day version of a Faustian pact. Javier is interrupted during a drug bust by high-ranking official General Salazar, who hires him to apprehend a hitman for the Tijuana Cartel. Rodriguez isn't stupid, though. He soon figures out that Salazar is in the pocket of a rival Cartel, and he's been hired not to bring criminals to justice, but as a pawn in a drug war. And he decides to do something about it. This is the film that del Toro won all the awards for, and it shows - he gives a brilliant performance, albeit one that is subtle and naturalistic rather than barnstorming and big.