Movie Review : Cocaine Cowboys (2006)

Your reality is defined by the boundaries of your perception. It's not what you know that matters, but what you think you know. For example, those of you who never met me know nothing about me, except how I present myself. I could be a professional athlete of an incarcerated felon, for all you know. Most of you have been raised thinking cocaine was evil and destroyed lives. Youth has been indoctrinated to think that way since Richard Nixon began waging war on drugs in 1971. I'm not saying blow is medicine, but you've been raised to think it's evil without trying it. Most of you have never even seen cocaine in real life. COCAINE COWBOYS is the story of how this golden goose of organized crime reached the shores of Miami in the 1970s and how it helped reshaping the city as we know it. It's a documentay with amazing guests, killer stories and bizarre values.

Back when nobody in America was putting cocaine up their noses, a couple opportunists small timers took on themselves to introduce this exotic pleasure in Miami. Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday were among the first to smuggle cocaine to America by plane. It seemed like a good idea to them at first, a legal loophole that allowed them to get rich with minimal effort. Cocaine quickly redefined their lives and the world they lived in. Their city started to change and since the war on drugs kept the object of their work illegal, the underworld flourished and organized crime violence invaded the streets of Miami. It became real dirty, real quick in the cocaine business and the opportunist small timers became overwhelmed drug lords, ill at ease with the increasing violence and, oddly, major investors in the city's constantly evolving real estate landscape. I don't think COCAINE COWBOYS will surprise anybody by claiming Miami was built on drug money.

It's a strange movie. COCAINE COWBOYS is fascinating at times, but it's an uncomfortable viewing. The people interviewed are high-profile drug traffickers and hitmen for the Medellin Cartel, who was basically wholesaling cocaine to Miami in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, they are portrayed lovingly by director Billy Corben. All the guest look like your uncles, reminiscing a wilder era around a beer, on a sunny weekday afternoon. They look harmless, terrified even when they discuss Griselda Blanco, the bloodthirsty godmother  of the Medellin Cartel, who took over the Miami area in the 1980s. I got no sense of danger whatsoever, stemming from them. They seemed complacent and nostalgic about that era, especially Jon Roberts. But then again, cocaine trafficking was his life for so many years, it all comes back to perception. But it weirded me out anyway.

Speaking of which, here is the kind of perceptual mindfuck I found myself thinking about when watching COCAINE COWBOYS : Imagine if cocaine would have been legal. Crime syndicates could've went mainstream and incorporated, distribute worldwide and live a safer lifestyle overall. What kind of company would have it made? Their money would've made them instant multinationals, but what would've been their company's values? How would've they treated their employees? If legal status and worldwide usage is based on an arbitraty decision, what famous CEO would've been a demented crime lord in another life? At one point, my mind was running amok so bad, I pictured the likes of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, who basically chained millions of people to machines, as cyberpunk kingpins, shaping a different kind of underworld with their habit-forming product. COCAINE COWBOYS presents the facts under such a bizarre, twisted light, I had a lot of fun extrapolating from it.

Drugs changed the landscape of contemporary America, that's a fact. The war on drugs probably changed it even more. If you're looking for a mind-altering viewing on the subject, I STRONGLY suggest that you watch AMERICAN DRUG WAR: THE LAST WHITE HOPE. If that doesn't open your mind about the history of drugs in America, nothing will. COCAINE COWBOYS was fun for what it was, a bunch of dudes reminiscing about a long gone era, when their lives were dangerous but oh-so-exciting. The killer stories and the twisted point of view made it enjoyable to me. Could that story have been told better? Most likely. COCAINE COWBOYS lacked a serious opposing point of view. Consider it more of a memoir-movie than an actual documentary. It's an interesting element of contemporary counterculture, a folklore song to famous outlaw figures.