Cocaine Cowboys

http://www.cocainecowboys.com/



"Cocaine Cowboys" relives Miami's high times
Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:28pm ET

By Michael Rechtshaffen

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - As sensational as "Scarface" and a lot livelier than that "Miami Vice" movie, "Cocaine Cowboys" vividly traces Miami's trajectory from sleepy retirement mecca to Blow Central, USA.

The documentary might share its title with a 1979 Jack Palance-Andy Warhol clunker, but the newer film, with its colorful cast of real-life characters and a deliberately frenetic "coked-up" editing style, has the feel of a narrative feature, complete with a two-hour running time.

Of course, it also doesn't hurt to have Jan Hammer doing your soundtrack, but the end result makes for some very intriguing viewing.

Invaded by Colombia's powerful Medellin Cartel in the late 1970s, Florida's then wide-open shoreline made way for a $20 billion annual cocaine business, triggering a violent turf war responsible for tripling Miami's homicide rate by the early 1980s.

While Miami has since undergone yet another metamorphosis as an ultra-glam celebrity hotspot, directors Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman, who previously helmed 2002's controversial "Raw Deal: A Question of Consent," maintain that its gleaming skyline stands as a lingering monument to all the drug money that snowed on the city.

Although their story could have been told a bit more concisely, they get a lot of good stuff out of their talking heads, primarily those belonging to Jon Roberts, a transplanted New Yorker who figures he moved more than $2 billion worth of cocaine for the cartel; Mickey Munday, a pilot who smuggled more than 10 tons of coke from Colombia to the U.S.; and Jorge "Rivi" Ayala, a charismatic contract killer still doing time for his numerous hits.

The most fascinating figure doesn't even appear on camera, save for a handful of archival photographs. Griselda Blanco, a.k.a. "La Madrina" a.k.a. "The Godmother" a.k.a. "Black Widow," casts a fearsome shadow as the Colombian "queenpin" who was credited with single-handedly sparking Miami's bloody drug wars.

It is a safe bet she would have made mincemeat out of Tony Montana and his little friend.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Just seen this movie a couple of hours ago, really good documentary and well put together, kinda hard hitting when you hear about the lady Griselda "Godmother" Blanco (posted above) and the murders her henchmen commited over her criminal years, I never realized that there was as much cocaine and murders in Miami during the 70's 80's till I watched this movie, I also found it interesting when they talk a little about the Columbian Cartel, great movie overall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WtNQyk7E-0

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...s&search=Search

A great docu! A very interesting insight view of the smuggling of cocaine into Florida. And Rivi (The Hitman) gives good insights into the Colombian hitteams during the wars. That Griselda Blanco is/was one crazy bitch.

TELEVISION REVIEW
Miami's drug days retold
BY GLENN GARVIN
ggarvin@MiamiHerald.com
Miami Drug Cartel. 8-9 p.m. Sunday. National Geographic Channel.

Once upon a time, youngsters, you could get machine-gunned at Dadeland Mall not over a parking space but because Colombian cocaine traffickers found your sport coat annoying. On Sunday, the National Geographic Channel helps us relive those golden days with its captivating documentary Miami Drug Cartel.

MURDER AND MONEY

A chronicle of the decade that followed the infamous Dadeland Massacre -- the 1979 shooting spree at the mall that left two dead and two wounded -- Miami Drug Cartel covers much of the same ground as last year's film documentary Cocaine Cowboys as it recounts the avalanche of cocaine that buried South Florida in murder and money.

But where Cocaine Cowboys wallowed more in the gore, Miami Drug Cartel is almost a business-school case study in the development of a new industry. Using interviews with cops and former traffickers, as well as DEA surveillance video, it outlines in fascinating detail both the nuts and bolts of cocaine trafficking (how to drop a duffel bag full of the powder from an airplane to a waiting speedboat) and the macroeconomics of developing and dividing a market.

The latter was done largely with automatic weapons. Miami Drug Cartel's title is actually a misnomer; if a single organization had dominion over South Florida trafficking, Miami's murder rate wouldn't have doubled in a single year, as it did from 1980 to 1981.

As former trafficker attorney Humberto Aguilar explains in the documentary, the Colombians who vied for control of the cocaine trade didn't bother with stock proxies or leveraged buyouts: ``My clients didn't worry about suing you. . . . They kill you.''

MINOR FLAWS

Enjoyable and informative, Miami Drug Cartel does have a couple of minor but irritating flaws. One is to exploit, yet again, the pernicious Scarface myth, that the mass exodus of Cuban refugees from Mariel fueled the cocaine wars.

In fact, the Dadeland Massacre was nearly a year before Mariel.

The other is the documentary's blithe claim that, these days, all's well: ''Miami Vice is now Miami Nice.'' Yeah, buddy, go look for a parking space at Dadeland on a Thursday night, then report back.

Glenn Garvin posts news and mini-reviews on his weblog, Changing Channels. Click on Blogs.

ciao,

what does everybody think of the movie cocaine cowboys seems to me that those boys had a golden goose and as always it goes to shit its the violence that brings all the heat that is the biggest problem you cant go leaving bodies all over the streets we had the same problem in Melbourne Australia people cant turn a blind eye to dead people in the street crims or not


http://video.google.com.au/videosearch?q=c...en&sitesearch=#

a great view at the 70,s and 80,s

Cocaine Cowboy II has been released on dvd in the US, and is available for download at your local internettorrent.

It is a very good crime docu, though definitely not as good as the first Cocaine Cowboys. CC2 seems to be very much a glorifying the drug dealers and its culture. From the start the main person Cosby is being labeled a "real nigga". There are other examples. This is annoying at times and downgrades the docu. It is still a great watch, with interesting info about black drugdealers and Griselda Blanco and her gang.

Myspace pages of Griselda Blanco & her son Michael Corleone:

Griselda: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...endID=399720631

Michael Corleone: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...endid=399714507

maybe if u write an email telling her how much you admire her she will add you as a friend and maybe you can even meet her to!

That's funny if you've seen Cocaine Cowboys II. That's how the guy meets her and becomes her boyfriend; not via Myspace of course, but through writing her in jail saying how much he admired her.

Can't tell if you have seen the movie or not Galante.

lol yea man i saw the movie thats why i made that comment.