Cocaine Cowboys

Plot synopsis:
Cocaine Cowboys chronicles the development of the illegal drug trade in Miami during the 1970s and 1980s with interviews of both law enforcement and organized crime leaders, in addition to news footage from the era. The film reveals that in the 1960s and early 1970s, marijuana was the primary import drug into the region. During the 1970s, marijuana imports were replaced by the much more lucrative cocaine imports; as more cocaine was smuggled into the United States, the price dropped, allowing it to turn "blue collar" and become accessible to a wider market.
Drug importers reveal several of the different methods used to import the drug into Florida. The primary methods of transport were aircraft or boats. The drug importers also reveal the complexity of their importation methods. The logistics involved included the purchase and financing of legitimate businesses to provide cover for illegal operations, the use of sophisticated electronic homing devices, and other elaborate transportation schemes.
The film also addresses the difficulty importers sometimes had storing all the money they made, resulting in their setting up a relationship with Noriega in Panama, as well as buying up entire neighborhoods of houses, putting money into infrastructure, as well as investing in side projects, such as race horses.
The distribution networks were also highly elaborate, and many people were involved locally and nationally in the consumption of the imported cocaine. Importers reveal that condominiums were purchased near particular ocean waterways to provide a monitoring post for U.S. Coast Guard and local police patrol boats, and high-tech radio equipment was used to monitor the radio frequencies of federal, state, and local authorities in order to warn incoming boats and airplanes.
The film reveals that much of the economic growth which took place in Miami during this period was a benefit of the drug trade. As members of the drug trade made immense amounts of money, this money flowed in large amounts into legitimate businesses. Consequently, drug money indirectly financed the construction of many of the modern high-rise buildings in southern Florida. Later, when law enforcement pressure drove many major players out of the picture, numerous high-end stores and businesses closed because of plummeting sales.
Also documented in the film is the gangland violence associated with the trade. The interviewees in the film argue that Griselda Blanco, an infamous crime family matriarch, played a major role in the history of the drug trade in Miami and other cities across America. It was the lawless and corrupt atmosphere, primarily from Blanco's operations, that led to the gangsters' being dubbed the "Cocaine Cowboys".

Tags: violence, action, murder

Review:
This was a spectacular depiction of the life and times of Miami in it's criminal hay day.
I witnessed the carnage first hand as a member of federal law enforcement and this documentary hits the nail squarely on the head.
just like Miami at that time.
This was one of the few documentaries that told the stories of both sides of the struggle.
I can understand why people may find this documentary offensive or cheap, politically correct agendas have a way of skewing reason.
This documentary was an excellent depiction of the times..
Although I had the opportunity to see the unfinished version of what is sure to be an award-winning film, I was thoroughly impressed by Cocaine Cowboys.
Without giving anything away, let me just say that this film refrains from the type of overly preachy or overly glorified view of the cocaine business in the late 1970's and 1980's.
A nice balance of character analysis mixed with an abundance of archival data kept my interest throughout the experience...and I walked out of the theater feeling as though I really learned a great deal, not only about historical occurrences, and their impact on a few central characters or society as a whole; rather, I left the cinema with a grasp of the time period from many different perspectives: Columbian drug lords, Cocaine transporters and dealers, special task force members assigned to find the aforementioned groups, local media then and now, land developers, vacationers, car salesmen, and your average Miamian.
You could blow into town with $500 dollars in your pocket, and the next things you know, you are burying millions in your bag yard, driving the hottest cars, have two or three cigarette boats, a string of race horse, and land all the way up to horse country in Marion County.
The Miami skyline was booming with two dozen construction cranes operating, cars were selling like hotcakes, and there was no trace of the recession that was occurring elsewhere in the US.But, then came the 80s and there were 100,000 illegal Colombians in Miami and Castro had just flushed Cuba's toilet and dumped his criminals into the city in the Mariel boat lift.
War began between the drug dealers on these two sides, and it came to the attention of Reagan and Bush that there was a problem in Miami that affected the whole country.Long before I got attracted to Carl Hiaasen's fiction, I was reading his columns from the Miami Herald.
Miami had become Dodge City and Chicago during Prohibition to the tenth power.This is the story of those two decades in Miami and the results today - a booming international city built on cocaine.
This was what happened to Miami with cocaine in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a story told exhilaratingly in Billy Corbern's fast-moving documentary 'Cocaine Cowboys'.
Still, it's an amazing story, one that seems more fit to video games than to real life, and its epilogue was the construction of much of the modern city with the proceeds from the trade..
I was born post the cocaine era so I did not know how incredibly different the laws were during that time.
This documentary gives so much insight into this high-speed world of drugs.
Documentary Film-making as Tabloid Journalism.
Cocaine Cowboys is narrowly focused on how Miami became the drug capital and the most dangerous city in the United States during the late 1970s and the early 1980s.
The film is lasciviously fascinated with the lavish lifestyle and the grotesque violence generated by the drug trade.
Fans of TV's Miami Vice and Brian de Palma's Scarface are advised to rush to a theatre playing this film.
They'll find that the real-life models of the fictional villains are even more flamboyant and vicious (the life of Griselda "the godmother" Blanco could be turned into a nifty fiction film).
Shots of piles of cash and large stashes of cocaine are used as would-be punctuation marks; and there are more snapshots of bloody, perforated bodies than you've ever seen in your life.Cocaine Cowboys is documentary film-making as tabloid journalism.
Towards the latter stages, Cocaine Cowboys strains to present Miami as "the city that cocaine built" by hyperbolically describing late-70s Miami as a "sleepy hamlet".
The real Miami Vice, or so they Claim..
A very stylized documentary, for a very stylized period of time, Cocaine Cowboys takes us into the world of Miami between 1970 and 1980.
Using plush diversions with still images The Kid Stays in the Picture made popular, Cocaine Cowboys shows the immense changes Miami went through as it discovered the drug cocaine.
Primarily interviewing three of the main names during this drug and blood soaked era, this film delves into a world filled with money, women and more importantly cocaine.
As the film informs us, the Colombian Cartel made over ten billion dollars during their escapades in the Miami area, not only for themselves, but for the Americans helping them distribute.The characters that are being interviewed, including an inmate captured for over twenty murders, never so much as flinch as they describe in detail, brutal murders.
This documentary does lack some of the more interesting comparisons director Billy Corben does brag about in his advertising for the film.
Saying that it is the true story behind Scarface and Miami Vice, Cocaine Cowboys barely touches on these comparisons, and seems to bring the most interest from these brief allegories.Despite this small short coming, the rest of the film is entertaining and educational, especially for a native Floridian like myself.
I never really knew how large this business was in Miami until I watched this true rendition of the over fantasized films it claims to be the inspiration for.
Cocaine Cowboys is a great movie.
Never has a viewer gotten to experience the real cocaine world until now.
Interviews with a top hit-man/enforcer, a pioneer pilot, kingpin, and tons of stock footage make this film completely unique.The sequel, Cocaine Cowboys 2 - Hustlin With The Godmother,is going to be even better.
There is an advance screening June 20, 2008 at the CineVegas Film Festival and this time around the documentary has worldwide distribution checkout www.charlescosby.com for some pictures of Griselda Blanco and Charles Cosby..
With only this one word you could best express the movie Cocaine Cowboys.
I really liked that the “authors” told us also numbers, strategies, trading, techniques … everything what you could join with drug mafiosos.
Prisoners told us how they were laughing about films in cinema or TV (for example Miami Vice) and they characterized it as stupidity.
It is interesting that you are not bored, also because brutal shots (police photos), which you can see a lot in the film.
If you want to know something more about drug cartels, Cocaine Cowboys is the right movie for you..
Fast-paced and entertaining retelling of Miami's 'Cocaine Wars'.
Anyone familiar with the story of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel will know how the mass manufacturing and distribution of cocaine turned Colombia into a war zone, with top politicians and judges routinely assassinated, and gang wars spilling violence onto the streets on a daily basis.
Billy Corben's documentary Cocaine Cowboys focuses on the effect the most fashionable drug of the 80s had on Miami, which was the main entry point for masses of imported cocaine.
Soon enough, the city once seen as the holiday spot for retired old folks was turned into the richest place in the world, with luxury car dealerships and expensive jewellery shops popping up all over, and of course, lots and lots of banks.
The sudden boom was all down to cocaine consumption, and this came with a heavy price.Corben tells the story using a variety of interviews, news reports, archive footage and photographs, lending a voice to everyone from smugglers, enforcers, politicians and law enforcement.
The most fascinating insight is given by pilots Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday, who decided to get into the drug trade early on, making an unfathomable fortune in the process.
They offer entertaining anecdotes about their experiences, and were making so much money that they lived in little fear of getting caught, even buying their own airports to import the goods in complete secrecy.
The main threat came from the cartel itself, which was so powerful and far-reaching that one foot out of line and you were dead, often by way of horrific torture.The film's final third focuses heavily on the 'Cocaine Wars' that became so out-of-hand and brazen that it led to military intervention.
It's a mind-blowing tale of how one drug can have such a devastating effect on a country, and it's told in a fast-paced, almost coked-up fashion, with the clever use of subtle animation to make stills feel alive, and a wealth of shocking and revealing archive footage to paint a clear picture of a city in crisis.
I often attempt to describe what it was like there to friends: the Haitian boat people, the Liberty City riots, the Mariel boat lift and the Colombian drug trade.
Prior to seeing "Cocaine Cowboys", the best I could do was tell them "watch 'Scarface'...with the exception of the final scene over-the-top hokey shootout, it was dead on." "Cocaine Cowboys" captures the true picture of the era there.
This was followed by an ad for Lanson's, a high end men's clothier, advertising a bullet proof men's dinner jacket, "What the best dressed Miamian is wearing." Driving down Flagler St. in Miami, you see a bus stop bench with an ad on the back: "Protectar usted y su familia" punctuated with pictures of an automatic pistol and a machine gun.
The movie speaks for itself just like "Scarface".
The movie does credit the cocaine "business" with cash infusion into the area and the resulting uplift of the overall economy.
However, it omits the psychological impact on ordinary citizens, who saw little of the cocaine bucks: fear of getting caught in a crossfire and the depression of living in a combat zone.
I gave the movie a "9" only because it was a documentary and had no plot, no real acting.
I wanted to like Cocaine Cowboys a more intriguing documentary than I did.
It lacks no influence in terms of its information in the world of big-stakes crime of a period that seems long ago within a thirty-year time frame.
I liked hearing details in the stories, like the car towing company the dealers had as their back-up when driving around the cocaine shipments.
I don't mind in the theory of it how one goes into a cocaine documentary making it a fast-pace story.
True Hollywood story more than anything- than more traditional documentaries.
And the one guy who's interviewed most (I forget his name, he's the ex-big time Miami coke dealer with the mustache) adds to the annoyance factor after a while; somehow one might find the guy more interesting in smaller doses, not as the one blabbering and bragging for 45 minutes of the film until it gets to the gun-blazing Columbians.It might be worth a little bit of time if on TV, where it has more of a tabloid edge on things (if whatever edge I can't say for certain).
But I'd much rather take on a book two or re-watch Blow or good parts of Scarface or Miami Vice to get a better dramatized take on the facts than see it all the way through again..
I not only saw the documentary, I lived it, I became a Metro Dade county police officer in Aug of 1980 and retired in 2002, I was on the scene of at least half the drug related killings pictured in the video, and a whole lot more that were not.
As if that weren't enough, I also went to High school with the quintessential Cocaine Cowboy Mickey Munday, oddly enough I didn't make the connection till I watched this video 50 something years later, I recall him as a redheaded nerd who the girls wanted nothing to do with, if they had only known that one day he would be buying entire neighborhoods and burying trash bags full of 20s and hundreds..
2006 Version: What I liked most about this "documentary", is that there is no voice-over that says us what to thing and it is just testimony of people who were in "the game" at the time.
But when you add great editing, fantastic 80's soundtrack and footage you get story, that puts lot of movies like Scarface to shame.
I have problem calling this a documentary, because lot of testimonies, especially from the people involved in drug trafficking are pretty unreliable.
You will understand what made Miami so special and you gonna see the bigger picture behind the city.
'The true story that inspired Scarface'.
Um...isn't Scarface a remake of a film from the 30s?
And wasn't the bulk of Scarface's writing and production already complete by the time this documentary really gets to any story in it's chronological order?
If you have seen the episode of The Simpsons in which Homer is interviewed on TV by Godfrey Jones then you'll know what I mean.Credit must be given to the crew for actually managing to track down the majority of the drug dealing scum and murderers for honest and open interviews.
But with practically no archive footage to work with the film looks incredibly bland.
It's also way too long and you'll be looking at your watch by the 80-minute mark.A sequel is in production (oh, lucky us) detailing the life of the Psycho Woman in charge of it all, but you'll excuse me if I have more interesting things to do, like licking the dust from the skirting board behind the radiator..
Cocaine Cowboys is for you..
Leaving no tired coke dealer cliché untouched, this film will be coming soon to a wannabe rapper or drug dealer's DVD player soon...
The truth can be ugly.This just in, apparently a lot of money was made in the 80s selling cocaine in Miami.
Wow. I know that's a lightning bolt to most people but if you've seen one movie about cocaine sales you know it will not be complete with out 20 minutes of cash piling up montages and police photos of bloody bodies.
Apparently the film makers only had access to a few photos of the people they are talking about and interviewing as you keep seeing the same photos over and over again.
The documentary style of this does seem to be hijacked from several other more recent films.
You find out all kinds of things about Griselda Blanco and her henchmen all of it basically the heresay of convicted felons and washed up out of the game former drug dealers.
While the stories told are fantastic they seem plausible in this insane world the cocaine cash cow of the 80s.
This film is disgracefully exploitative and frankly really not that interesting or as shocking as they seem to give themselves credit for.
This film hits all of the key cliché's when making a film about drugs, pointless violence, over glamorization of the endless amounts of money and basically ignoring the fact that most of these losers being interviewed seem almost too happy to tell you in an unflinching way how they shot someone or did this or that making all of this cash, meanwhile all they are in the end are idiots that didn't know when to quit.
Congratulations dirt-bags.I really feel the best way to see this film is cruising A1A in Diddy's SUV between endless Scarface and Carlito's Way viewings.
Cocaine Cowboys a beautiful shot film, if you are into heavy 80's news style, but the overall documentary is boring.
The story is told in a bland way, the interviewees boring and the substance nonexistent.
Great documentary, important history, ties both series, Narcos, and El Chapo together, great for getting it all in perspective.There's no glorifying the drug smuggling, just explaining how and why they did it, and how it still affects the USA.Having the actual smugglers speak in this type of expose is rare..
The Miami that we know of today was built with drug money.
Just reading that sentence can be downright depressing, but the story behind it is one that is oddly (maybe perversely) fascinating.Directed by Billy Corben, "Cocaine Cowboys" examines Miami's turbulent transition from a sleepy vacation town to a beachside Metropolis, financed by cocaine revenues and victims of a truly nasty drug war.
Using testimonials from several key figures in the importing of drugs, we get a detailed depiction of the violence that spilled onto Miami streets.
What's staggering about the late 1970s (when the go-go party scene was in full swing in South Florida) is that while the rest of the United States was slogging through hard economic times, Miami was flourishing, due to the incredible infusion of cash into the city's economy.
Luxury cars were flying off the lots, and the scads of loose cash were eventually funneled into real estate, leading to the construction of Miami's brand-new glittering skyline.
The insane materialistic excess of the time is part of what makes "Cocaine Cowboys" so seductive.
The situation would prove dire enough to demand presidential attention, and a new ramped-up brand of law enforcement was born, taking the fight back to Blanco and the Colombians."Cocaine Cowboys" is one big thrill, aided (in no small part) by flashy imagery and editing, and even a score by Jan Hammer that keeps us reminded of the coastal paradise patrolled by Crockett and Tubbs.
This is probably one of the best documentaries I have seen.
I remember witnessing the drug culture during that time frame.
It was amazing to watch this movie and marry the story to what I saw in my youth.
I remember about when the drug of choice switched from a relatively harmless weed (debatable I agree) to such a destructive choice as cocaine, but I did not know the all the reasons.