Cocaine Cowboys on DVD today

click here for the full review:

In the typically highbrow world of documentaries, Cocaine Cowboys is a decidedly different breed of cat. This machinegun-paced exploration of South Florida's cocaine trade in the late Seventies and early Eighties is violent, exploitive and unabashedly lurid. Far from copping an academic or sociological perspective, this pulpy motion picture is clearly buzzed by the wild exploits of the flashy drug traffickers and murderous thugs that it follows.

And damned if it isn't also a hell of a ride. From its opening, a cheesy re-enactment of a 1979 drug-cartel massacre at a Dade County shopping mall, Cocaine Cowboys makes it clear that insight won't be on the itinerary. It's trashy, sure -- but it's engrossing, energetic, and thoroughly irresistible for true-crime fans or anyone else who ever went to the trouble of committing lines (the spoken kind, thank you very much) from Brian De Palma's Scarface to memory.

Still, your appreciation of Cocaine Cowboys largely depends on whether you're willing to switch off your moral compass for two hours. Don't expect redeeming value here; the flick is several notches shy of blood porn. And help me, but I thought it was a blast.