Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded Blu-ray Review
Old Habits Die Hard
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, April 11, 2014
After premiering at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, Billy Corben's documentary
Cocaine
Cowboys was picked up by Magnolia Pictures, which released the film according to its usual
multi-platform strategy in theaters, on-demand and on DVD. The film's meticulous research and
precise construction left a memorable impression on anyone who saw it. The subtitle for the
documentary's German release summed it up best: "The True History Behind
Scarface and
Miami Vice". Indeed, to make sure no one missed the connection, Corben and his producing
partner, Alfred Spellman, persuaded Jan Hammer, composer of the
Miami Vice theme, to supply
the film's soundtrack. Hammer's driving, relentless synthesizer score, coupled with the inherent
drama of Corben's tale of cash, killings and chaos, gave his film a propulsive energy that few
documentaries—indeed, few dramas—could match.
Magnolia is now releasing the film on Blu-ray for the first time. As compensation for the eight-year delay, they are offering an extended and re-edited
version (hence "Reloaded") that runs
approximately thirty-six minutes longer than the original release, including updated
developments on some of the key players. Many have since died from causes both natural and
otherwise. In the interim, Corben and Smallwood also released
Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin'
with the Godmother (2008), a companion piece about a "disciple" of one the key players in
Cocaine Cowboys. Here's hoping Magnolia brings it to Blu-ray in the near future.
According to director Corben, almost an hour of
Reloaded is new footage, which means that
some parts of the original
Cocaine Cowboys have been replaced with different material. A
detailed comparison was not available, but you would never know from the experience of
watching
Reloaded that an earlier version existed. The original movie was carved out of 150
hours of interviews, 50 hours of archival footage and 1000 stills. With the benefit of hindsight
and time for reflection, Corben has obviously had time to consider other approaches to telling his
story, and there must have been plenty of material worth adding—so much so that the
Reloaded
Blu-ray even contains deleted scenes, all of them worthwhile.
Reloaded retains the basic three-part structure that Corben established in the original
Cocaine
Cowboys. First, he looks at the smuggling potential that made Miami an ideal point of entry for
illegal drug traffickers. Here, Corben had some of his most entertaining interviews with two
fascinating characters, a former dealer named Jon Pernell Roberts, and a former pilot and
smuggler, Mickey Munday. With obvious pride in both their smarts and their chutzpah, the two
men detail techniques for bringing massive quantities of contraband into the country by sea and
air, right under the noses of customs and law enforcement. Both began with marijuana, but
cocaine offered a much bigger payoff. When the white powder took off in the Seventies, both
Roberts and Munday became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.
(A side note: It was through Roberts that Corben and Smallwood first began the project that
became
Cocaine Cowboys. After the success of their first documentary,
Raw Deal: A Question of
Consent, at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, many people approached them with ideas for a
followup, but it wasn't until Corben met Roberts that he knew he'd found a subject worthy of
their effort. Through Roberts, he and Smallwood gained a crucial entree to those with firsthand
knowledge of illegal drug operations.)
Wealth dominates the second part of
Cocaine Cowboys, but it's a specific kind of a wealth: all
cash. As oceans of cash washed through Miami, the previously quiet city became an international
banking center, with financial institutions from all over the world opening local branches to
compete for drug money. When cash is laundered, it has to go back into the system, and banks
send their excess cash to the Federal Reserve. Banks in Miami processed so much cash that, by
the early Eighties, the Federal Reserve's Miami branch had a cash surplus of $6 billion—greater
than all other branches in the U.S. combined.
The local economy was transformed. Expensive nightclubs blossomed. Luxury car dealerships
multiplied, as did jewelry stores and other sellers of high-end goods. Drug money fueled their
growth, just as Wall Street bonuses fed similar growth in Manhattan. A building boom began, as
drug profits were funneled into real estate investments. Much of today's dramatic Miami skyline
owes its existence to the cocaine trade.
Vast wealth from illegal activity quickly leads to corruption, and Corben collects numerous
stories of police and local officials accepting bribes or actively participating in criminal acts. As
the institutions of law and order collapsed, there was nothing to hold back the gangs of violent
traffickers whose numbers were swelling and who, increasingly, were fighting each other over
turf. Many were immigrants from Colombia whose only loyalty was to the gang or cartel that had
hired them. Others arrived from Cuba during the so-called "Mariel boatlift" of 1980, when Fidel
Castro used the flight of refugees as cover for emptying his jails. (This historical episode
provides the opening for
Scarface, with Al Pacino's Tony
Montana as a typical example of the
cold-blooded killer who arrived in Miami and immediately began looking for employment as a
thug.)
The transformation of Miami into a war zone by feuding drug gangs is the third part of
Cocaine
Cowboys. Corben uses archival news footage; interviews with cops, lawyers and former DEA
investigators; and, perhaps most memorable of all, an extensive prison interview with the
deceptively charming Jorge "Rivi" Ayala, a top enforcer and hitman for Griselda Blanco,
sometimes known as "La Madrina", "the Godmother" or "the Black Widow". A member of the
Medellín Cartel, Blanco was universally feared for her ruthless brutality, which Ayala illustrates
in story after gruesome story. With leaders like Blanco calling the shots, Miami and surrounding
Dade County became the murder capital of America. A
Time Magazine cover story in 1981
described the area as "Paradise Lost". The gangs came to be known as "Cocaine Cowboys",
because their gunplay had turned Miami into the Wild West.
Corben relates these events with aplomb, and he also conveys how the situation was finally
brought under control by a coalition of federal and state law enforcement, with federal authorities
supplying much-needed funding and material support. La Madrina relocated to California, where
she proceeded to create a whole new set of problems, and many of the lesser players fled, died or
were arrested. Still, Miami was permanently transformed, and in the final section of
Cocaine
Cowboys, various interview subjects reflect on the aftermath. As the credits roll, Corben shows
courtroom footage of Rivi Ayala's most recent attempt, in 2013, to gain his release from prison.
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