Cocaine Cowboys

Cocaine Cowboys is narrowly focused on how Miami became the drug capital and the most dangerous city in the United States during the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The film is lasciviously fascinated with the lavish lifestyle and the grotesque violence generated by the drug trade. Many obviously find such material quite fascinating. There's no denying that several anecdotes shared by dealers, smugglers, cops and veteran reporter Edna Buchanan are very amusing. Fans of TV's Miami Vice and Brian de Palma's Scarface are advised to rush to a theatre playing this film. They'll find that the real-life models of the fictional villains are even more flamboyant and vicious (the life of Griselda "the godmother" Blanco could be turned into a nifty fiction film). CocaineCowboys combines talking-head interviews with old TV footage in rat-tat-tat editing style. Shots of piles of cash and large stashes of cocaine are used as would-be punctuation marks; and there are more snapshots of bloody, perforated bodies than you've ever seen in your life.

Cocaine Cowboys is documentary film-making as tabloid journalism. Its cheap thrills provide a measure of entertainment but its reportage is devoid of context and thoughtful commentary. Director Billy Corben is a native, but as one born in 1979 his view of the material is decidedly second-hand. Towards the latter stages, Cocaine Cowboys strains to present Miami as "the city that cocaine built" by hyperbolically describing late-70s Miami as a "sleepy hamlet". There is some truth to the argument but it is a self-serving and simplistic one. Moreover, the content as presented here is likely to perpetuate certain ethnic stereotypes about the Colombian community and Cuban "marielitos" (Cubans who arrived when Castro allowed migration to the US through the port of Mariel in 1980).

I never could have guessed how intricate the cocaine industry was at this time. I was born post the cocaine era so I did not know how incredibly different the laws were during that time. This documentary gives so much insight into this high-speed world of drugs. I loved how the director allowed the members involved to tell their stories; however I wish that he had let them tell all of their stories & it was kind of jumpy when moving a narration when moving from one involved member to another would help the transition to be better understood. But now I'm hooked I wished that some of the involved members had not passed away because I have got to know more the system was so complex I want to know how it all works.

Prohibit a substance and its price will rise; with big profits available beyond the protection of the law, violence will follow. Concentrate the trade for an entire country through one city and an economic boom will combine with a murder epidemic. This was what happened to Miami with cocaine in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a story told exhilaratingly in Billy Corbern's fast-moving documentary 'Cocaine Cowboys'. It's a gripping tale, and the sheer quantity of money and death in it is truly horrifying. And yet, there's also a sense in which this film leaves a slightly sour taste in the mouth, as essentially it's a platform for a pair of major smugglers and one psychopathic killer to wax lyrical about the good old days, relatively free of moral condemnation. Still, it's an amazing story, one that seems more fit to video games than to real life, and its epilogue was the construction of much of the modern city with the proceeds from the trade.

Although I had the opportunity to see the unfinished version of what is sure to be an award-winning film, I was thoroughly impressed by Cocaine Cowboys. Without giving anything away, let me just say that this film refrains from the type of overly preachy or overly glorified view of the cocaine business in the late 1970's and 1980's. A nice balance of character analysis mixed with an abundance of archival data kept my interest throughout the experience...and I walked out of the theater feeling as though I really learned a great deal, not only about historical occurrences, and their impact on a few central characters or society as a whole; rather, I left the cinema with a grasp of the time period from many different perspectives: Columbian drug lords, Cocaine transporters and dealers, special task force members assigned to find the aforementioned groups, local media then and now, land developers, vacationers, car salesmen, and your average Miamian. Perspectives offered were not limited in scope. I highly recommend this film.

A very stylized documentary, for a very stylized period of time, Cocaine Cowboys takes us into the world of Miami between 1970 and 1980. Using plush diversions with still images The Kid Stays in the Picture made popular, Cocaine Cowboys shows the immense changes Miami went through as it discovered the drug cocaine. Primarily interviewing three of the main names during this drug and blood soaked era, this film delves into a world filled with money, women and more importantly cocaine. As the film informs us, the Colombian Cartel made over ten billion dollars during their escapades in the Miami area, not only for themselves, but for the Americans helping them distribute.

The characters that are being interviewed, including an inmate captured for over twenty murders, never so much as flinch as they describe in detail, brutal murders. It is truly fascinating to listen to these criminals, two of which were released from prison, reminisce their achievements within crime organizations. This documentary does lack some of the more interesting comparisons director Billy Corben does brag about in his advertising for the film. Saying that it is the true story behind Scarface and Miami Vice, Cocaine Cowboys barely touches on these comparisons, and seems to bring the most interest from these brief allegories.

Despite this small short coming, the rest of the film is entertaining and educational, especially for a native Floridian like myself. I never really knew how large this business was in Miami until I watched this true rendition of the over fantasized films it claims to be the inspiration for. Explaining allot of what the American government will look away from, due to hefty drug money profits, does put a perspective on its true intentions, be it accepting drug money, ammunition money, or any type of blood money.