Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Heavy Traffic Blu-ray Movie Review

"Carole don't need anything else unless she wants it, and child, I don't want it."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 31, 2024

Ralph Bakshi's 'Heavy Traffic' was initially released on Blu-ray by Shout Factory in 2013. The R-rated adult animation film originally followed the filmmaker's more infamous X-rated 'Fritz the Cat' by a year, hitting theaters in 1973, and has since gained a small cult following. Still largely unknown, Sandpiper Pictures has released it for a new decade and new audience. The erratic film was written, directed and animated by Bakshi and produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff and Steve Krantz, with music by Ed Bogas and Ray Shanklin.

"What makes you happy? What makes you happy? Where do you go? Where do you go? Where do you hide? Where do you hide? Who do you see? Who do you see? Who do you trust? Who do you trust? Who do you screw? Who do you screw? What kills the pain? What kills the pain? Game up, game win. Bug around, set it straight. Transaction. Play it hard, hurts so bad. Gotta win. Everyone loses. Everything loses. Gotta win big. Sick and tired of losing. Where does it all go? Where does it all go? Where does it lead us? Where does it lead us? Tilt City, Pinball Alley. Blinkin' lights shot to Hell, fuck it all!"

Jack-of-all-filmmaking trades Ralph Bakshi's semi-autobiographical account of the life and times of a struggling inner-city cartoonist is brimming with colorful, often garish characters and caricatures, the majority of whom are more interested in taking advantage of artist Michael Corleone (voiced by Joseph Kaufmann) than inspiring him. Muses are hard to come by, though one emerges in a bartender named Carole (Beverly Hope Atkinson) who increasingly clicks with Michael at a deeper, more personal level. Other voice talents include Frank de Kova as Michael's mafioso father Angie, Terri Haven as his mother Ida, Mary Dean Lauria as Molly, Charles Gordone as Crazy Moe, Jim Bates as cross-dresser "Snowflake," Jacqueline Mills as Rosalyn, Lillian Adams as Rosa, Peter Hobbs as Jerry and Candy Candido as one of Angie's lackeys.

Click here to read Jeffrey Kauffman's review of the film, which he calls "almost improvisational, rather like a free jazz (or perhaps more appropriately in this instance acid jazz) experiment that wafts from character to character without apparent rhyme or reason, an animated version of a jam session where the players aren't riffing on any given chart." Adding, "the overwhelming success of Fritz the Cat no doubt freed Bakshi to indulge both his Id and his Ego in Heavy Traffic, and while the film is an often startling display of technique, blending animation and live action in some inventive ways, it is from a narrative standpoint largely a mess, one that plays like the hallucinations of a drug addled mind."

Heavy Traffic Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

"Listen, Michael. Uh, first thing in the morning, we will take them big-ass drawings of yours up to one of them big cartoon syndicates. You can sell 'em, we'll get some bread, get our clothes out of Angie's house and split for San Francisco. And Shorty can't roll that far."

It's difficult to analyze Heavy Traffic's 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation and drill down to an accurate score. Dirty, dingy and riddled with grime -- literally -- it's meant to wallow in the streets and gutters, and does so to solid effect. Animation sometimes blends with live-action, which doesn't look a whole lot better, though in the case of the scant few scenes featuring real-world Michael, it becomes more polished, with consistent grain, contrast, saturation and detailing. But by and large, Heavy Traffic is an animated film and beholden to its cels. Colors are vivid but contrast dips and dives; sometimes delivering stunning vibrancy via the film's cast of eccentrics, sometimes plummeting into shadow, where tweaks would go a long way. Likewise, detail hits and misses, with line art and textural elements that are much crisper in brighter scenes and much less impressive when the lights go down. There also appeared to be compression artifacts in several fast-switch scenes, though they're thankfully minimal and rather fleeting.

Heavy Traffic Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

"Everyone goes back to work today! Right? This is Angelo Corleone talkin'! We don't recognize unions on this dock! All we recognize is men who wanna work! There's the boxes to load, there's the pavement, there's the ship. There's no union here! We don't need no commies and Jews here. So let's go, huh? What do you say men?"

Heavy Traffic's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track gets loud. And I mean loud. But so does the movie, which gets noisy and chaotic a bit too often. That said, dialogue remains intelligible, effects are cartoonish but well-prioritized, and dynamics are notable (despite the lack of LFE support). It all sounds pried out of a can from the early '70s, but that's part of the film's now-retro charms.

Heavy Traffic Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only extra available is the film's theatrical trailer, presented in standard definition.

Heavy Traffic Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"Listen, mother, we just got to get it together. A couple of jobs ain't nothin. This world ain't gonna drop its drawers easy for you, just like you think I'm gonna do for you. And I've been playing easy games, bringing you along slow. But seein' as how you don't know a friend when you sees one, let's see the kind of balls you got for a real man's game. Okay, creep?"

Heavy Traffic is as in-your-face as a nonsensical adult animated film can get, even one hailing from the drug-addled '70s. It has its charms, I'll admit, but both my colleague (in 2013) and I (in good ol' 2024) found it to be quite the mess. The delirium looks and sounds pretty good in high definition, though the video transfer and audio mix have their drawbacks. I just wish there were more extras, especially anything that might have taken a deep dive into Bakshi's feature film catalog and career.