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Cocaine Cowboys (2006)

tomatometer

69

Average Rating: 6.4/10
Reviews Counted: 49
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 15

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.

59

Average Rating: 6.1/10
Critic Reviews: 17
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 7

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.

audience

69

liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 74,787

My Rating

Movie Info

In the early '80s, a new business emerged in Miami, FL, that changed the face of the city forever. That business was cocaine smuggling; as America developed a growing appetite for the drug, Colombian suppliers found that Miami was a good place to bring it into the United States, and a new breed of outlaws were more than happy to face the risks of importing cocaine in exchange for the massive profits to be made. At one time, cocaine runners were making so much money that the city's banks were

Jan 23, 2007

Magnolia Pictures

All Critics (51) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (35) | Rotten (15) | DVD (1)

The Jan Hammer music on the soundtrack works overtime to assure us that Cocaine Cowboys is the real, nastier version of Miami Vice

December 1, 2006 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | Comment
Detroit Free Press
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This is an ugly film, but with an undeniable allure.

November 10, 2006 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

November 10, 2006 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | Comment
Houston Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This documentary on Miami's lethal '80s cocaine scene is cut fast.

November 10, 2006 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

At half the length it would have been twice as good, but nevertheless it stokes a nostalgia some may have for a magic period in Miami history when it was ever so briefly the American Casablanca.

November 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

After beginning at a healthy clip, the film becomes mired in endless remembrances of debaucheries past and Miami's descent into lawlessness.

November 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | Comment
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Documentarian Billy Corben's revealing film exposes the methods and players in South Florida's drug trade that literally built the city of Miami that we know today with billions of dollars in blood cash.

April 24, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | Comment
ColeSmithey.com

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.

March 6, 2008 Comment (1)
Washington City Paper

Grisly crime scene snaps accompany the story, which makes Miami Vice look like a tea party and Florida like hell on earth.

November 23, 2007 Full Review Source: This is London | Comment
This is London

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.

November 23, 2007 Full Review Source: Times [UK] | Comment
Times [UK]

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.

November 23, 2007 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

Without narration, the doc has scant moral compass, its very title celebrating the machine gun-wielding mercenaries involved.

November 23, 2007 Full Review Source: Total Film | Comment
Total Film

Too often the film crosses the line between recording his subjects' illegal activities and aggrandising them.

November 23, 2007 Full Review Source: BBC | Comment

It's the sort of glamour-meets-violence drugs-crime story on which lads' mags thrive: unqualified, over-reverent and hysterical.

November 22, 2007 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Fast-paced and fascinating, but a little too frenetic for its own good.

November 3, 2007 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

Rich in detail and fascinating characters.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International

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.

December 8, 2006 Full Review Source: Las Vegas Weekly | Comment

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.

December 7, 2006 Full Review Source: Orlando Weekly | Comment
Orlando Weekly

It's watchable, but like gorging on every rotten issue of the old Confidential magazine.

November 10, 2006 Full Review Source: San Diego Union-Tribune | Comment
San Diego Union-Tribune
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Cocaine Cowboys

Very gripping account of the history of the drug trade, and how it transformed the U.S into a crime-infested war zone. Centered around interviews with some of the pivotal names behind the killings and smuggling, we get a shocking inside-look into the minds and events that got it all started. What's scarier yet though,

June 8, 2007
CloudStrife84
Mike S

Super Reviewer

Billy Corben's stunning documentary details the inner workings of Miami's cocaine cartel by soliciting testimony from the people who made it happen. WARNING: some of the crime scene photos and stock news footage is graphic.

January 7, 2009
flixsterman
Randy Tippy

Super Reviewer

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Latest News for Cocaine Cowboys

January 5, 2012:
Emma Stone Drives a Little White Corvette
She'll play "the wild half of mismatched siblings who to travel to Miami hoping to sell their...

August 1, 2011:
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Foreign Titles

  • Cocaine Cowboys - Die wahre Geschichte hinter Scarface und Miami Vice (DE)
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