Cocaine Cowboys (spoilers)

I finally got to see this last night. As an avid viewer of documentaries, I have to say, I was pretty disappointed.

The movie started out OK by focusing on Roberts and Munday. The music was a little overbearing in the background the entire time, but whatever. Surprisingly, I found the subject matter only somewhat interesting. Seemed like pretty run-of-the-mill tales of drug-running.

Then, in the middle of the film, they switched the focus to the hit man and the crazy bitch (Griselda Blanco). And all they really did was start letting the hit man tell gruesome, street-level tales about hits that really weren't that relevant to the movie overall. It felt very gratuitous and lazy.

But my biggest complaint about the movie was its lack of intellectual rigor. They basically left their subjects to tell wild tales, and they didn't seem to do much due diligence to confirm them. For example, towards the end, several of the subjects just casually asserted that all the drug money was THE reason for Miami's growth into a major city. Sorry, not buying it counselor. In another section, it was asserted that an ENTIRE incoming police academy class either went to jail or was killed. Sorry, I call bullshite.

In the end, the film did a terrible job of telling the story, it focused on one psychopath and her contract killer and it didn't appear to do much primary research other than digging up archival footage which was often pieces from commentators of the time basically starting the urban legends that the film was repeating.

Very disappointing.