Rapid Pacing Can’t Cover the Emptiness of ‘Human Traffic’

“Human Traffic” was a huge hit in Britain last year. But unless young Americans are able to make an instant and unquestioning identification with its Cardiff, Wales, youth who live for weekends of drugs, dancing, clubbing and partying they may notice how generic everyone is and how the film rarely slips below its hard, flashy surface.

This 1999 debut feature of Cardiff’s 25-year-old Justin Kerrigan is nothing if not derivative: “Trainspotting,” “Saturday Night Fever” and even “Thank God, It’s Friday” come swiftly to mind, along with a slew of British films dealing with young people stuck in dead-end jobs.

Starting the story in motion is Jip (John Simm), a clothing store clerk who pals around with lovely, blond Lulu (Lorraine Pilkington). Jip is sexually blocked because his loving mother is a prostitute. He sees Lulu as strictly a friend, but she may be viewing him differently. Jip’s best friend, Koop (Shaun Parkes), a record store clerk with terrific selling skills, dreams of DJ stardom and is quick to become jealous over his girlfriend Nina (Nicola Reynolds), an inherently touchy-feely type, a would-be college philosophy major who abruptly quits her job at McDonald’s.

This is the weekend she intends to introduce her 17-year-old kid brother Lee (Dean Davies) to Ecstasy; also part of this group is Moff (Danny Dyer), a bright, volatile kid constantly at war with his conservative family, especially his policeman father.

All these young people are formidably articulate, Moff and Jip in particular, and most of them are near-incessant talkers. (It’s sometimes easy to overestimate British pictures because so many people in them have such a firm command of language.) They certainly do express discontent and angst with a ferocious profanity. Kerrigan constantly punctuates their remarks with vignettes depicting their thoughts, imaginings, fears and frustrations.

He is emphatically energetic: His film is constantly on the move at a frantic pace, music blasting away and with a flourish of camera trickery. The film is nothing if not frenetic, so much so that as it unfolds you start suspecting that Kerrigan is instinctively keeping everything revved up to keep us from noticing that what’s going on is pretty inconsequential. For all their fulminations and passions, which occasionally are comical, these people are difficult to become involved with because there’s really nothing very distinctive about them--which, ironically, may make it easier for audiences who are their contem-poraries to project themselves into their lives.

Through Moff in particular, Kerrigan does suggest, if only lightly, that there can be a comedown with drug-taking, which he views as a recreational activity, a phase you outgrow along with the whole rave scene. It’s possible to disagree with his view without getting indignant about it; since the film doesn’t dwell on the actual taking of drugs you find yourself oddly more concerned by the young people’s virtual chain-smoking.

Ultimately, it’s not the hard living these young people are doing that’s disturbing per se--after all, it’s hardly uncommon--but that apart from some drug-induced highs, they may not be having as much fun as the film seems to be insisting they are. There’s an underlying emptiness to “Human Traffic,” and it’s difficult to say for sure whether Kerrigan fully acknowledges it.

* MPAA rating: R, for pervasive drug content and language, and for strong sensuality. Times guidelines: strong on drugs and language, some sex.

‘Human Traffic’

John Simm: Jip

Lorraine Pilkington: LuLu

Shaun Parkes: Koop

Nicola Reynolds: Nina

Danny Dyer: Moff

Dean Davies: Lee

A Miramax Films presentation of an Irish Screen presentation of a Fruit Salad production. Writer-director Justin Kerrigan. Producers Allan Niblo, Emer McCourt. Executive producer Renata S. Aly. Cinematographer David Bennett. Editor Patrick Moore. Music Roberto Mello, Mathew Herbert. Costumes Claire Anderson. Production designer Dave Buckingham. Art director Sue Ayton. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

At selected theaters.