Made in Britain, remade in America

Best: “Traffic”

Hopefully the filmmakers behind “State of Play” studied Steven Soderbergh’s provocative drama as a model of how best to turn a six-hour British miniseries into a shorter, but equally dense and challenging American film. Soderbergh and writer Stephen Gaghan—both of whom won Oscars for their efforts—use multiple, gradually converging storylines to study the war on the drug trade, much as the original series “Traffik” did. They also updated the material to focus on the drug exchange along the U.S.-Mexico border to help the tale resonate with a new audience.