A Question About "Traffic" *Spoilers* (1 Viewer)

[Mike Graham]

I recently purchased the superb Criterion version of "Traffic" and watched it today. This was the first time I'd seen the movie since it was in theaters, and a question occurred to me:
When Frankie Flowers plants the bomb on Don Cheadle's car and waits for them to get into it, there's a sniper watching him the whole time. When Cheadle, his partner and the witness decide to walk to the hotel, Frankie Flowers gets out of the car to shoot the witness. The sniper sees this and says, "Fucking rat," and fires, killing Frankie Flowers. Now, from the sniper's comment, it sounds like he was actually aiming for the witness, but hit Flowers instead. Yet, the sniper worked for Obregon, who employed Catherine Zeta Jones and her husband. I would take it to mean that since Zeta Jones and her husband owed Obregon money (which Dennis Quaid was actually holding), Obregon wanted to kill Frankie Flowers to keep the husband in jail. However, the only thing that doesn't fall into place is the sniper's comment about being a rat. So what did he mean?

Otherwise, this is a great film which is finely crafted by everyone involved. Criterion has made a wonderful special edition, and the pricing of it in Canada (around $30 CDN) actually put it in my budget range.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Frankie Flowers ratted out the Obregons to Gen. Salazar (under torture, but I doubt the Obregons cared). When Javier lets Frankie go, he says that he won't kill Frankie, because the Obregons will take care of it. And they do. The sniper was aiming at Frankie.


M.

 

[Mike Graham]

Michael Reuban, thanks a lot!! I completely forgot about what happened to that character beforehand :b . Ahh, it all makes sense now! Just goes to show how great this forum is!

 

[Ryan Peter]

I never liked that scene. It made me very happy to hear the director and the write say on the commentary track they didn't really like it either.