Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
69 %
Reviews Counted: 48 Fresh: 33 Rotten:15 Average Rating: 6.3/10
Consensus:
As frenetic, thrilling, and lacking in subtletly as its drug of focus...and just as likely to prompt some hard questions after it's gone.
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Theatrical Release: Oct 27, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: The cocaine trade of the 70s and 80s had an indelible impact on contemporary Miami. Smugglers and distributors forever changed a once sleepy retirement community into one of the world's most glamorous hot spots, the epicenter of a $20 billion annual business fed by Colombia's Medellin... [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Director: Billy Corben
Buy It On DVD
Reviews
With a nearly two-hour running time that includes its share of blowhards, repetition, and cheesy attempts to heighten drama, Cocaine Cowboys brings to mind an unfortunate comparison: Miami Vice. The movie.
Comment
03/06/08
Grisly crime scene snaps accompany the story, which makes Miami Vice look like a tea party and Florida like hell on earth.
11/23/07
The haystacks of cash and coke are laughably insane – as is the head-count: thousands of people were gunned to death. This is the only state in the world where Scarface might raise a smile.
11/23/07
At nearly two hours, Cocaine Cowboys (appropriately) doesn't know when to stop talking, but as a chronicle of a demented epoch, it's both entertaining and just about definitive.
11/23/07
Without narration, the doc has scant moral compass, its very title celebrating the machine gun-wielding mercenaries involved.
11/23/07
Too often the film crosses the line between recording his subjects' illegal activities and aggrandising them.
11/23/07
It’s the sort of glamour-meets-violence drugs-crime story on which lads’ mags thrive: unqualified, over-reverent and hysterical.
11/22/07
Fast-paced and fascinating, but a little too frenetic for its own good.
11/03/07
Click to read the article
01/19/07
There's so much compelling material here, all of it salacious and dangerous and so enjoyable that you might just feel a little guilty afterward.
12/08/06
Cocaine Cowboys is a fascinating look at a time when Miami was so flush with cash from cocaine deals that it was completely buffered from a nationwide recession.
12/07/06
The Jan Hammer music on the soundtrack works overtime to assure us that Cocaine Cowboys is the real, nastier version of Miami Vice
12/01/06
Top CriticClick to read the article
11/11/06
Top Critic
It's watchable, but like gorging on every rotten issue of the old Confidential magazine.
11/10/06
Forget Scarface and Miami Vice. Cocaine Cowboys is the real deal -- a down-and-dirty look at the high living and illegal drugs that dominated south Florida in the 1980s.
11/10/06
Top Critic Top CriticRelated Forums
(Docu/2006)-COCAINE COWBOYS clearly shows the upside & downside to the drug trade!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 3/8
by: REEL_REVIEWER 3/8
(Docu/2006)-COCAINE COWBOYS clearly shows the upside & downside to the drug trade!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 3/8
by: REEL_REVIEWER 3/8
(Docu/2006)-COCAINE COWBOYS clearly shows the upside & downside to the drug trade!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 3/8
by: REEL_REVIEWER 3/8
(Docu/2006)-COCAINE COWBOYS clearly shows the upside & downside to the drug trade!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 3/8
by: REEL_REVIEWER 3/8
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