Movie review – “Cocaine Cowboys” (2006) ****

Brilliant documentary, very well done (complete with Jan Hammer music score) about cocaine in Miami in the 70s and 80s. Fast paced with jazzy editing, it even has a cocaine “feel” as well as some terrific talking heads. The best are a couple of surviving crims especially the pilot and the hitman. The story of the female gangster would seem to be a natural for the movies (she was devoted to her dopey sons, was a former hooker who worked her way to the top, was responsible for over 200 deaths, was a bisexual who loved fashion and occasionally killed her lovers after having sex with them) – but she’s still alive, so maybe that’s scared people off. Also fascinating is the stuff about the economics of the drug trade, which clearly helped Miami boom. Is this going to encourage other struggling cities to embrace drug dealers? Well, the British empire was partly built on opium.