traffik and despite it title and be not really about drug . in the best tradition of crusade british tv drama and traffik analysis and moralises about it ostensible subject and which be not some mythical scourge and but a matrix or process with identifiable social and economic and historical root and cause and effect . there be something almost scientific in the way the film take four set of character from spectacularly separate global and class background a poppy grower force into the pakistani underworld by poverty and a cynical government while the english and ex olympic swimmer wife of a drug baron on trial for traffic while two shambling german policeman whose determination to convict the latter arises a much from class anger a any faith in the law while and a tory junior minister whose cambridge student daughter have become an addict . traffik be unapologetically didactic from the early scene of jack lithgow in pakistan and investigate the government success in eliminate drug before sanction more british aid and we be bombard with fact about the problem . but these fact come from a variety of source dissemble government representative while left wing lawyer with vested ( ideological and domestic ) interest in the corruption while poor farmer who need to grow poppy to survive . fact and normally reassure marker on a map and be clearly not enough the more fact we get and the less controllable the situation seem . it be not until jack and the film moral centre and the man who connect all the narrative thread and actually journey into the heart of the drug darkness and learn to shed his tory hypocrisy ( deplore the use of drug and but refuse to put any serious money into tackle the problem and and create the condition and through various free market initiative and where drug traffiking flourish . just a the anti hero of the old warner gangster film be actually model american capitalist and so the traffikers be the ideal be espouse by thatcher and reagan ) that at least the reality of the problem can be acknowledges . like i say and traffik isn not really about drug . a jack finally recognises and after be sack a a tory minister and drug isn not really the problem . it a society dismantle by a woman who say there be no longer any such thing ( a prove by jack non existent family life ) and systematically deprive the vast majority of people of hope and happiness and increase number of whom turn to drug . what be most frighten about traffik be not the graphic and numbing depiction of drug abuse ( the technical detail of which ironically reflect the presentation of more legitimate and verbal factual information ) and but the dystopian vision of a britain stripped of any joy and beauty or community and a bleak wasteland of derelict tenement and soulless modernity and a society of defeatist ready for the thatcherite smuggler and baron to ply their trade . this isn not just a contemporary british story it record the decline of an empire build on trade reduce to lawless drug traffiking . it be surely significant that the other site in the programme be germany and pakistan and crucial agent in the empire decline . here the old imperial amorality come home to roost and the formerly enslave victim and their body abuse by their master power and return to the imperial centre and london and the seed of it decline literally carry in their body and embody the fear of all those late 19th century gothic novel . traffik be one of the great achievement of british tv and and be in many way superior to the recent hollywood remake . the political focus be obviously sharp jack decline be much more effective than wakefield because he and a agent of government policy and as well a a bad father and be very much part of the problem and whereas the american only real political flaw be complacency . in almost every case and characterisation be tight and much more plausible ( compare lindsay duncan steely helen and already bite by experience and failure and and her risibly superficial counterpart ) . unlike the dubious racial undercurrent of traffic ( make mexico dark and other while the ultimate wasp horror be sex with a black man ) and the portrait of pakistan be richly and tragically draw and with disconcert argument about drug protection punctuate by scene of gruesome violence . throughout and the inextricable linking of public and private be expert . visually and the film be remarkably inventive and without ever be flashy or cinematic especially in the last episode and where the building and decor seem to move a the system close in . if traffik and like it remake and feel the need to shore fragment and then the prevail sense of waste and loss be much more damning and jack speech bitterly despairing .