Cocaine Cowboys

Director: Bill Corben
Starring: Documentary

For the thousands of tourists who descend upon Miami every year, the city represents pleasure, relaxation, nightlife...and perhaps brings back the faint beat of a Will Smith song. 

But Cocaine Cowboys director Bill Corben resurrects a Miami of the past, one that served as inspiration for cultural mainstays like Miami Vice and Scarface.  The film traces the exponential growth of the cocaine trade from its covert introduction by marijuana dealers in the 1970s to its zenith as a highly coordinated land, air and sea operation in the 1980s, told through the narration of the major players.  These include the kingpin, the smuggler, the court reporter and the police force.

The statistics alone on the amount of drugs and laundered money that flowed through the city are staggering - with estimates totaling nearly $5 billion a year.  But coupling this information with tales of international corruption, unrelenting murder and cruelty, the film makes certain audiences will never again see Miami in the same light.

With Miami Vice's theme composer Jan Hammer setting the '80s mood, Corben's skillful manipulation of his limited visual resources (old photographs, archived news stories, police reports) saves the documentary from becoming merely a string of interviews - as perversely entertaining as they may be. 

One former smuggler harps on Miami Vice's lack of accuracy, while a convicted murderer lauds himself as the "best hitman on U.S. soil" during the 1980s.  The beginning of the film easily lures you in with the carefree and - dare I say it? - lighthearted recollections of the "business only" cocaine traffickers.  Suddenly, the lens turn to the street war and gut-wrenching shot after shot of bullet-ridden bodies, targets of the enforcers who disturbingly recall their crimes with the same proud ease as the traffickers. 

Just as the audience reaches its limit of the homicidal mayhem, the film shows a surge in government efforts and most of the major criminals end up behind bars or dead.  Free of its debilitating crime scene, the city converts the glitz and glamour of the high-rolling drug-dealer lifestyle into the thriving metropolis that is modern-day Miami.  But as the camera pans the bustling Florida coastline and the breathtaking skyline of Miami, it simply cannot erase the images of far too many dead.  There is no victory here.