This documentary on Miami's lethal '80s cocaine scene is cut fast.
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11/10/06
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Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
69
%
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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
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.
11/09/06
Top CriticAfter beginning at a healthy clip, the film becomes mired in endless remembrances of debaucheries past and Miami's descent into lawlessness.
11/09/06
It's a remarkable immersion in a world turned morally inside out.
11/03/06
Aiming for encyclopedic coverage of the drug epidemic and its effect on the city, Corben packs much too much into one movie.
11/03/06
While the filmmakers clearly got a contact high from hearing all these war stories, most civilians will find a little of this goes a long way.
11/02/06
Top CriticThrough its use of archival news footage and contemporary interviews, Cocaine Cowboys proves to be an intoxicating exploration of Miami, the '80s cocaine trade and those who saw it all happen.
11/02/06
Cocaine Cowboys’ pulpy entertainment value merely lures us into a grim, kaleidoscopic look at how one city was both destroyed and, ironically, eventually saved by some of the worst human beings to walk the Earth.
11/02/06
The only thing more boring than listening to someone on drugs may be listening to someone brag about how many drugs he used to sell.
10/31/06
Top CriticCocaine Cowboys is gleefully manipulative -- which is meant as a compliment. Edited for maximum impact, it packs the furious momentum and dramatic punch of a riveting feature film.
10/31/06
A hyperventilating account of the blood-drenched Miami drug culture in the 1970s and 80s.
10/30/06
Top CriticAs sensational as Scarface and a lot livelier than that Miami Vice movie.
10/30/06
Top CriticFans of Scarface and even Goodfellas will definitely get their thrills.
10/29/06
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
Cocaine Cowboys is kinetic and absorbing, the documentary equivalent of GoodFellas.
10/28/06
Cocaine cash financed Miami's renaissance, but the film never downplays the human cost at which that urban renewal was purchased.
10/27/06
While it's a bit haphazardly organized and offers only a cursory analysis of the drug war's impact on the city, Billy Corben's second documentary is ultimately as compelling as any pulp yarn.
10/27/06
Parts of Cocaine Cowboys manage the impossible -- making cocaine boring. But the film doesn't shy away from presenting horrific images: We see blood-streaked walls, bullet-perforated bodies and Katie Couric's haircut circa 1981.
10/27/06
Top CriticIf 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 CriticAn exercise in blood-soaked nostalgia, a look back at an era (the late 1970s and early 1980s) when Miami was a bad and dangerous place to live.
10/27/06
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