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10/25/06
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Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
69
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:49
Fresh:34
Rotten:15
Average Rating:6.4/10
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.
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... [More]
Director: Billy Corben
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Reviews for Cocaine Cowboys
Top CriticThis documentary on Miami's lethal '80s cocaine scene is cut fast.
11/10/06
It's a remarkable immersion in a world turned morally inside out.
11/03/06
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 CriticWhat was needed was the Frontline approach; what is provided, sadly, is Brian de Palma Lite.
10/26/06
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.
04/24/09
An exhilarating documentary that details the chaos, glamour and greed of the drug industry in Miami during the 1970s and '80s.
10/26/06
It’s the sort of glamour-meets-violence drugs-crime story on which lads’ mags thrive: unqualified, over-reverent and hysterical.
11/22/07
It's watchable, but like gorging on every rotten issue of the old Confidential magazine.
11/10/06
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
One worrisome aspect here is the absence of any condemnation of self or substance on the part of the three principal participant-interviewees.
10/28/06
Rich in detail and fascinating characters.
03/01/07
Without narration, the doc has scant moral compass, its very title celebrating the machine gun-wielding mercenaries involved.
11/23/07
This is an ugly film, but with an undeniable allure.
11/10/06
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01/19/07
If The Godfather movies were based on real gangsters and some of them were still around to talk about the good old days, they might be as fascinating as the characters in Billy Corben's documentary about the cocaine import business in 1970s Miami.
10/27/06
Top CriticThe 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
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
Click to read the article
11/11/06
A hyperventilating account of the blood-drenched Miami drug culture in the 1970s and 80s.
10/30/06
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