Cocaine Cowboys Review - 305hiphop.com

October 16, 2006

The flick that has been playing in all the flea-markets, barber shops, and at your local bootlegger is about to officially open in theaters on Friday, October 27th. The documentary COCAINE COWBOYS is directed by Miami filmmaker Billy Corben. COCAINE COWBOYS focuses on the enormous impact the cocaine trade and drug wars of the 70s and 80s had on the identity, culture, economy and even the skyline of contemporary Miami. As the commercial flashy hit movie MIAMI VICE reminds us, smugglers and kingpins forever changed a once sleepy retirement community into one of the world’s most glamorous hot spots when the town became the epicenter of a $20 billion annual business fed by Colombia’s Medellín cartel. By the early 80s, Miami’s tripled homicide rate had made it the murder capital of the country, for which a Time cover story dubbed the city “Paradise Lost.” COCAINE COWBOYS features interviews with some of the era’s top law enforcers, traffickers, suppliers, dealers and killers, mixed with some insanely cool archival footage to produce a serious yet entertaining, even exhilarating look at a startling urban transformation. TV’s “Miami Vice” composer Jan Hammer provides the synapse-bumping score for COCAINE COWBOYS, a rakontur film produced by Alfred Spellman, Billy Corben and David Cypkin. rakontur’s first feature, RAW DEAL: A QUESTION OF CONSENT caused a sensation at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.