Drug Wars: The Camarena Story

A great film based on DEA agent, Enrique"Kiki" Camerena of Calexico California. Acclaimed director, Michael Mann of "Miami Vice", "Heat" and "The Insider" was Executive Producer of this 1991 Mini-series directed by Brian Gibson. It was the second most watched NBC mini-series of the year following "The Kennedys". Filmed on location in Spain, "Drug Wars" is a powerhouse film depicting the role of the DEA in Mexico in 1985 that led to the unveiling of drug corruption within the Mexican government. At the head of the investigation was agent Camerena, played by Steven Bauer along with Jaime Kurkendall,portrayed by Craig T. Nelson (wonderful performance by the way). Miguel Ferrer,Tony Plana, Elizabeth Pena and then 24 year old, Benicio Del Torro also star. A tight cast portray the investigation into the kidnapping, torture and cover up of Kiki Camarena. Based on Elaine Shannon's book and "Time" magazine article, "Desperados". This is a great film. The precursor to "Traffic".Great Film. I wish NBC would sell this film!

This movie is brilliant- at least the way I saw it. NBC aired this movie on TV. It was 6hours and it ran over the course of 3 days. At the end of each part NBC reporter Tom Brokaw did a behind the scenes special talking to reporter Elaine Shannon who covered the story to the actual DEA agents portrayed in the movie to even showing Rafa Caro-Quintero's luxury prison cell.

I am so glad I taped it when it aired. The DVD is awful; so many and I mean many, many scenes, vital scenes are taken out. If I watched the DVD without watching the original TV movie I would have had so many questions. One would think the DVD would have all the extras and bonus features.

I have seen this mini series. I really liked because it portrayed very much realistically the characters, scenes, language, and real life. I used to live on the border with Mexico for many years and the movie shows exactly what the real life is....I been looking for this movie to buy it but i cant seem to get a hold of it...If any one knows where i can get it please e-mail me i really appreciate the info....

Living so close to the border of Mexico, I saw that this film did an excellent job in demonstrating how corrupt the Mexican government really is. I highly recommend this film and really wish the full mini series would be released. It is very educational for today's youth.

Poor coverage, poorly edited, poorly written = bad film

This mini-series was disgraceful. Not only is the script bad, but the production value terrible and the acting, for the most part, poor. I found it shocking that this would come out on DVD - clearly an attempt to capitalize on Traffic.

I began watching before I realized it was a Net (NBC) mini-series, and thought it must have been produced mega low-budget by a Mexican TV chain - it was done in such a latino soap-opera style.

Awful.