HOW 'TRAFFIK' BECAME 'TRAFFIC': A CLASSIC RETURNS TO PBS.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

A week after Steven Soderbergh's ``Traffic'' garnered four Academy Awards - including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay - KCET is presenting the original ``Traffik,'' the sober, absorbing 1989 British miniseries about the eternally vexatious drug wars (originally aired on PBS in 1990).

It's a terrific opportunity both to see how truly masterful the original, written by Simon Moore and directed by Alastair Reid, is, as well as contrast how efficiently and intelligently Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan condensed such complex material into a 2 1/2-hour film. (Stephen Mirrione's Oscar-winning editing job varies the most from the miniseries: It's edgily jangly where the miniseries moves at a more measured, stately pace.)

The original British version explored the drug business from all sides at every level of the socioeconomic chain. We see the travails of the lowly Pakistani farmers who make more money growing poppies (from which opium is used to manufacture heroin) than cheap, poverty-inducing sugar cane. We're shown how wealthy suppliers greased enough corrupt officials to create an efficient network moving their product into Germany (hence, the ``k'' in the British title) and on to England and the United States.

We're likewise introduced to desperate users who sniff and inject heroin in a vain effort to salve their daily miseries, as well as the law-enforcement personnel trying to stop everyone else. Gaghan condensed the three-country relay to two - from Mexico into America - using the Tijuana/San Diego border as the pivot instead of Germany. He was also forced to jettison the farmer's plight, which is a major subplot of the miniseries - a young Pakistani farmer (Jamal Shah), wishing to provide for his family after armies burn his poppy plants, goes to work for a major smuggler, with grimly tragic results.

Much of the rest of the miniseries is neatly echoed in the film, including the earnest efforts of Jack Lithgow, England's chairman of the Drug Abuse Committee (Bill Paterson in the role Michael Douglas assumed for Soderbergh), to eradicate the menace, not fully comprehending the anomie that seizes addicts long before their addiction until he discovers the depths of his own daughter's (Julia Ormond) addiction.

Lindsay Duncan co-stars as the brittle wife of a successful German- based smuggler (Catherine Zeta-Jones plays her American counterpart) who becomes, if anything, even more ruthless than her husband. Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman's sardonic D.E.A. agents are here represented by a couple of schlumpy German cops (one perpetually wearing a giant, ugly orange down jacket) whose dedication far outstrips their effectiveness. Interestingly, Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro's character, the noble, incorruptible Mexican cop, doesn't have a direct corollary in the British version.

``Traffik'' asked many of the same hard questions Soderbergh and Gaghan posed, only more than a decade earlier: How best to fight the war on drugs? On the distant fields where the drug is grown? Against the now prosperous and powerful businessmen running import-export businesses? Against corrupt government and customs officials, or in the courts, where those truly responsible are rarely punished as severely as the pawns in this battle? Or, perhaps, by ministering to the hearts and the minds of the users, whose daily lives are so lacking they need illicit enhancement to feel truly alive?

Like Soderbergh and Gaghan, Moore and Reid offer no easy solutions. But they pose their questions grippingly and movingly. No matter which version you see first, it only enhances your appreciation of the other.

``TRAFFIK''

What: British miniseries on the drug wars upon which the Oscar-winning Steven Soderbergh film was based.

The stars: Bill Paterson, Julia Ormond, Jamal Shah, Lindsay Duncan.

Where: KCET.

When: 9 tonight and April 7.

Our rating: Four stars

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) Julia Ormond, left, is the daughter, and Bill Paterson is the father, in the PBS miniseries ``Traffik.'' Paterson's role in the feature film ``Traffic'' was played by Michael Douglas.