Human Traffic

Drugs encourage delusions of self-importance -- and that's true not only of the characters in Human Traffic but of the movie itself. The first feature from Welsh filmmaker Justin Kerrigan begins with a buzz but quickly deteriorates into grandiose posturing and sloppy sentimentality. It's a typical weekend in the grim industrial city of Cardiff, and Jip (John Simm), LuLu (Lorraine Pilkington), Koop (Shaun Parkes), Nina (Nicola Reynolds), and Moff (Danny Dyer) are keen to shed their drab weekday routine for a 48-hour rave of drugs, drink, bad conversation, and loud music. Maybe the problem is that I wasn't loaded on lager and Ecstasy, but Kerrigan's obvious wit and pseudo-profundity had me wanting to pound on the ceiling and demand quiet. This level of debauchery needs to be justified by some moral point, of course, and so Jip suffers from impotence, Koop from jealousy, and poor Moff from despair at ever finding any meaning in life through the morning-after haze. They discover their answers not in drugs but in the more palatable opiate of platitudes. Although it's been compared to Trainspotting, Human Traffic is strictly pedestrian.

-- Peter Keough