Cocaine Cowboys

last updated 8 January 2015

The creators of the documentary Cocaine Cowboys have done the impossible, said Kyle Smith in the New York Post. They actually manage to make cocaine boring. This 118-minute film takes news reports, crime-scene photos, mug shots, and interviews with criminals and scrambles them up into a speedy, indecipherable wreck of a narrative about Miami in the 1970s and '80s. It's offensive to the eyes and ears, blending Miami Vice composer Jan Hammer's disgusting synth score with such horrific images as 'œblood-streaked walls, bullet-perforated bodies, and Katie Couric's haircut circa 1981.' Interviews with the surviving criminals are bone-chilling, not least because director Billy Corben 'œpractically salivates with awe' at the glamour of it all, said Jan Stuart in Newsday. If he weren't so psyched about the Scarface-like deluge of blood and money, these anecdotes would actually be interesting. The stories of the ruthless queenpin Griselda Blanco and her remorseless assassin Jorge Ayala are legendary. This film deserved to be made, but it deserved to be made well, said Stephen Whitty in the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger. The fact that drug money fueled the construction of Miami's revamped skyline is hugely important. But the movie's overarching theme—the outer glitz of an industry with a dark soul—is 'œno deeper than a line of coke.'

Rating: R