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Reviews
Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami (2021)
Watchable but not rewatchable
A let down from the original 2006 Cocaine Cowboys doc. The first episode was the only one that delved deeper into Magluta & Falcon's operations & their lives as smugglers. This episode featured those who were actually there, which is a big positive: Bonochea, Posada, Linero, Barroso, Rosello & Valdes were largely the only plusses to it, and I enjoyed listening to journalist Jim DeFede as well. I especially wanted to hear more from Jorge Valdes, the kingpin who gave Magluta & Falcon his business prior to getting busted. But that was just the first episode.
However from the second episode through the end, there was little actual law enforcement other than the FBI and Operation Recoil, which were good interviews. Instead, the series shifted its focus to lawyers, as I found the remaining episodes to be almost dominated by them, whether the US Attorney's office or the defense team. The lawyers took away from the traffickers and their stories. Because of this, way too much time was dedicated to the legal proceedings. From the second episode onward, Magluta & Falcon were either in prison or fugitives. Not a lot at all was dedicated to actual smuggling & trafficking, delving into the logistics as the original Cocaine Cowboys did.
I also didn't care for the jumping around in the years. Just follow the events chronologically. Also wished they would have opened each episode with latin music instead of hip hop since it's Miami.
Another reason this may have fell flat was that Magluta & Falcon were said to be nonviolent prior to smuggling, something the US attorney stated in one episode. It was only after they were arrested and the list of witnesses was publicized that the killings began. So that was pretty jarring and frankly made little sense because there was no inkling of these tendencies prior.
My one takeaway from this series is just how slithery and slimy that lawyers on both sides were. It was a total mess because both sides were overpopulated with horrendous people. It's as if there's more honor in trafficking drugs that in criminal law. And the focus on the lawyers and the legal proceedings was what made this series pale in comparison to the original Cocaine Cowboys.
Griselda (2024)
Well done but too short
Overall I believe this was a good miniseries. While the character of Griselda Blanco was a bit too sympathetic compared to what she was like in real life, Vergara did an outstanding job in a lead dramatic role, and if she was typecast as Gloria Pritchett she broke from it in a strong way.
Supporting cast was very good, I felt there was good chemistry between Vergara and many of the others. Writing seemed very good, well-paced story.
I also very much liked the subtitles. This was a nice touch, and is rarely used on such a large scale. The Spanish language was needed to convey the mood and energy of the show, and it worked like a charm. Nicely done.
Only had a couple of problems with the series:
1) it painted Blanco in way too sympathetic of a light. Anyone who watched the groundbreaking 2006 documentary on the Miami Cocaine Wars called "Cocaine Cowboys" would know the real Blanco was far more vicious and cold than Vergara's portrayal. Also, I don't recall the real Blanco being a demagogue of sorts, with stirring, rebellious speeches to rouse her people to take on the rich whites who exploit them. Nice message but I don't think Blanco was like that.
2) The series was way too short. Only six episodes? There was so much to Blanco's life that you could have done four full seasons, easily. With flashbacks to her horrific childhood, particularly her upbringing by her vicious, abusive mother, Ana Restrepo. Season 1 could have been her NY days, season 2 Miami, season 3 in California (both as a dealer and her imprisonment, including her relationship with Charles Cosby), season 4 back in Colombia ending with her assassination. This was a very good, well-made series and I wanted to see more.
I give this 8/10 largely due to Vergara's chops in a dramatic, serious role, great writing for what this was (a miniseries), and great supporting cast.
Queen of Cocaine (2023)
A pinkwashed, girl-boss doc
A shallow, girl-boss piece. As we go through, it becomes increasingly clearer that this is a very "yas queen" doc.
It largely depicts Griselda Blanco being a victim of men's violent world, but the severe abuse Griselda Blanco endured at the hands of her own mother, who begot her violent ways, was completely ignored.
The filmmakers only care that a woman rose the top of a male-dominated industry, not about how she rose. It seemed to slyly laud the fact that Blanco used actual children to smuggle drugs during her NY days, as if that was just merely shrewd business and not horrid & inherently evil. There was very little condemnation or critique of her horrific actions.
Too many podcasters and not enough experts. I was particularly amused by the one who said "Colombia is a great place to grow COCOA". Not coca. Wow. I suppose this is what passes for actual experts here.
There also is a Harvard business school professor who brought very little to nothing meaningful to this, going so far as to apply business school theory to organize crime. To boot, she even went so far as to wreck a common saying by uttering that the "means justify the ends" instead of the actually correct "ends justify the means." Wow again.
Narrator sounds like a TikToker with an outrageous, cartoonish Latino accent when pronouncing Hispanic proper nouns. Pretentious. Peppered throughout are tacky titles like "lordess" and "queenpin" for Blanco. More pretension. The "Griselda's Secrets" quip when referring to her "clothing line" was goofy. Many documentaries can be very sensationalist on their subjects, but this was one of complete worship of a very dangerous criminal who, if anyone of these acolytes crossed her, would have slit their throats and those of their loved ones with no hesitation.
Didn't mention all the innocent people, including children, who died as a result of her shot calling. Including the accidental killing of 3-year-old Johnnie Castro; when Blanco was told about about it, she didn't care that the kid died (per Rivi). The doc chose to ignore this also.
Joltingly segued to a queen of crack segment, which had too little to do with Blanco to justify its existence. Clearly this is a cross promotion to get people to watch another one of their docs. No thanks.
Line: "But she's facing a bigger threat; her own conniving husband (Bravo)." The only things they established were Bravo was stealing from Blanco and that he also took a girlfriend back to Colombia. Bravo wasn't trying to kill her, didn't put a contract out on her, nothing like that. Meanwhile, it was the female (!) travel agent who ratted her out to the DEA. But no, somehow Bravo is the bigger threat. Gotcha. I don't doubt the philandering and stealing are what compelled Blanco to kill Bravo; it was established during the groundbreaking 2006 documentary "Cocaine Cowboys" that she was very erratic, making very rash decisions when it came to killing people. Moreover, this doc seems to justify Bravo's murder on the grounds of infidelity and theft. Examples of this include the lines "shooting her philandering husband right in the face", and "with Alberto now dead, the crown is fully hers." Even the Bravo shootout scene didn't look convincing even in slow mo.
Doc later states that Blanco's biggest rival was Pablo Escobar. But during "Cocaine Cowboys", 2 things were firmly established: 1) Popo Mejia, and perhaps Rafa, were the more direct rivals, and 2) they are now incorrectly presenting Pablo Escobar as being at the top of the food chain in the cocaine trade during the mid 1970s. That is wrong, as it was contradicted by the late Jon Roberts, a coke runner at the time, who said it was Fabio Ochoa Restrepo, the old man as Roberts called him, who was the real Boss of the entire trade. Roberts even said Ochoa controlled Escobar. I will take Roberts' word over that of these documentarians.
It seemed this doc also justified what all Blanco did when they said that Miami's economy really took off with all the spending and partying (that garbage, now-disproven term "trickle down"). So they're justifying her insane level of violence, which stands in stark contrast to what Edna Buchanan, Dr. Joseph Davis, and others have said during Cocaine Cowboys when they explicitly stated that it wasn't worth the price. Sure, Miami likely would not have been what it is now had it not been for cocaine, but was it worth the cost of so many lives? This doc never approached answering that question.
Now onto the few positives...
So glad they brought back retired DEA agent Palumbo and former CENTAC head Diaz, because unlike these podcasters and Ivy league professors, they were there as it all went down (BTW, why wasn't June Hawkins interviewed??). But the real highlight was her son, Michael Corleone Blanco himself, Griselda's youngest son and last of her line. Real people who were actually there, unlike the throng of podcasters and other talking heads. MCB made this watchable, so glad he finally got his voice heard.
I was heartened that Michael said that he realizes his father, Dario Sepulveda, loved him very much. In this apparent reveling of misandry, that was a bit of a shining light. Nevertheless, Blanco pursues Sepulveda anyway regardless of the facts 1) Michael was obviously safe in his father's care and thus she needn't worry about harm coming to him, & 2) she had Sepulveda killed right in front of Michael. Thankfully her sloppily-ordered hit didn't get him killed too, but it sure left him scarred. Michael's emotional story of seeing his father's murder (again, on orders of his own mother) was very stirring. And yes she ordered Dario's death despite her denial to Michael. I have to credit the producers for landing him, but he should've been more prominently featured, but clearly the pinkwashing of Blanco was paramount.
I saw Cocaine Cowboys, Cocaine Cowboys 2, and Cocaine Cowboys Reloaded years ago. But after recently watching Netflix' "Griselda", I binged all 3 plus this new one, and frankly "Queen Of Cocaine" is not up there at all. My suggestion is to watch the Cocaine Cowboys series to get a far better and more accurate assessment of not only Blanco, but of the Cocaine Wars in general for proper context. That series is the bar, whether this documentary likes it or not.
Regarding whether the ends justified the means for Blanco, it was clear that was this doc's message. As long as a woman rules, who cares how she got there.
Miami Vice: Honor Among Thieves? (1988)
Great plot, so-so execution
This had all the makings of a psychological thriller similar to the episode "Shadow In The Dark". There was an unmistakably dark tone throughout (serial child murder always grips a society, as it should), and great casting that included John Bowman as Delgado, Dylan Baker as the frazzled cop, and Gary Basaraba as the drug lord's top redneck henchman who has it out for Tubbs. You also had a great score by John Peterson, and Billy Idol's "Sweet Sixteen" was a perfect fit (which is more than I can say for Aerosmith's "Rag Doll", which seemed to be injected for the title alone).
So the makings were there for a top episode that could have rivaled the other top episodes, but execution and production flaws limited it.
First, you had Crockett & Tubbs essentially being held against their will at Palmo's place because the latter is distrusting of newcomers. You have a serial killer on the loose, and a child killer at that, and the two top cops aren't out looking for him.
Second, Castillo was doing a lot of legwork in the episode, something that police lieutenants do not do, which relegated Switek, Trudy and Gina to background noise. That trio should have been showcased better. Especially Trudy and Gina, since we're talking about little girls being murdered, one would think female cops would care the most.
Finally the kangaroo court at the end was corny. It was an "ah-ha" moment when Delgado tells Sonny that he was their contact re Palmo all along, but that was never capitalized on by Delgado during the so-called trial. Then at the end of the "trial" and after Burnett's empty defense, Delgado just runs for it. None of the other dealers who were there as "the jury" shot him down. None of them caught him, took him to a secluded location, killed him, then dumped the body. Nope, Delgado ran up to the rafters, then in a fit of dissociative identity disorder (which by the way was never explained) jumped to his death and just so happened to kill Palmo also. In "Shadow In The Dark", the Shadow catburgler's psychological profile was explored and helped us care about the character. But not with Delgado.
I'm tempted to give this fewer than six stars, but I could tell the casting was pretty good and a doll-obsessed child killer was a great idea for an episode. It's just that the actors didn't have a good script to work with. This episode just fell a bit flat.
Miami Vice: Shadow in the Dark (1986)
Perhaps the best episode of the series
If this episode isn't the best in the series, it's certainly in the top-3 as one reviewer here stated, no question. I'm always into psychological thrillers, or mindscrews as they say, and this one was so well done I don't know where to begin.
Certainly the writing was more than solid, the acting top-notch. Johnson, who will never be confused with an Oscar winner, did one his best roles ever as he took us down the path of obsession and psychosis. This might be the beginning of Crockett's arc which culminates in his amnesia toward the end of season 4 where he believes he is, or rather becomes, his alter-ego, the ruthless Sonny Burnett. If this episode isn't he beginning of his arc of mental problems, it's certainly a catapult to it, because Crockett clearly had lingering issues at the end.
A great movie or show always requires a top-notch supporting cast. Jack Thibeau's Lt. Gilmore was incredible, and Vincent Caristi's Shadow was outstanding. For as good as Johnson was here, this episode would never have been as good without Thibeau and Caristi. Only possible critique is that John Diehl's Zito wasn't in it. But Diehl was on his way out of the series so I suppose his absence is understandable.
We can also mention Jan Hammer's scores, they were perfect for this episode. Then again, Hammer rarely got it wrong, if ever. And the fact they aired this on Halloween, you can't get a more perfect timing.
Season 3 had a smattering few hints that the show was downgrading from the consistency of the first two seasons, but Shadow In The Dark isn't one of them. Not by a long shot.
Miami Vice: The Cows of October (1988)
Switek gets some spotlight but episode is too goofy
Not the worst episode ever but nowhere near the greatest. Of course long-time Vice fans will know by now that season 4 is a big drop-off from prior seasons (although the beginnings of the downturn were in season 3).
I am always up for another star to get some needed spotlight, and this time it was Switek. Clearly he was in a lead role, which is great, but perhaps because Don Johnson, who obviously had a reduced role, wanted nothing to do with such a goofy episode. But to make the spotlight meaningful for any actor, the writing has to be taken seriously. And this episode was a joke. So I hate it for Michael Talbott that Switek got the lead in a bad episode. This is what they call in professional wrestling "burying your talent". However we do see the foreshadowing of his gambling problems in upcoming episodes as he "invested" in cow futures with Calvin only to be ripped off.
Harry Shearer was top-notch in this episode, him and Martin Ferrero really shined although I get tired of the show goofing on Izzy also. If one is looking for comedy relief, Shearer and Ferrero brought the goods, especially Ferrero's Izzy who is always the master at malapropisms.
However there was more bad than good. The whole cowboy schtick pervading this entire episode was ham-fisted to the point of tacky. If you want to do an alternative episode with a different vibe, fine. But do it smartly, which this episode wasn't in the least. Don't insult fans by putting a cowboy hat on Tubbs and Switek and think it'll be convincing. There is no excuse for this; because as we recall, MV had another cowboy-themed episode entitled "El Viejo" starring Willy Nelson as a former Texas Ranger bent on avenging the death of his old partner's son. That episode was incredibly well-done; it was thoughtful, creative, and used its actors wisely. Nelson, who isn't an actor by trade, pulled off a great role in no small part because of the great writing.
This show has also historically used modern songs to complement certain scenes. But it didn't this time. It used what can only be described as pre-canned corny, outdated country/western studio scores. Why couldn't the show have featured music from a famous country band from the 1980s, such as Alabama, Diamond Rio, the Judds, the Allman Brothers, etc? But that would have required a production crew that actually cared about this episode and remembered what made the show iconic to begin with.
They even had Crockett, not Switek, arrive at the end to confront Calvin. After all, Switek was the one who was ripped off, and if anyone had a grudge against Calvin, it was him. But no, the show decided to goof on Switek once again. Switek could have taken the money and sent Calvin on his way empty-handed, then perhaps given Izzy a good chunk of the money and sent him on his way (showing Stan has a heart), with Switek taking the lion's share for himself, then telling OCB that Calvin took the money and ran. This also would have enabled his gambling from the start. A future episode revolving around Switek's gambling could easily have shown Crockett/Tubbs asking Izzy about the money that Calvin long got away with, only for Izzy to say that Calvin never took the money with him; Switek took it. And go from there. Easy. But that would have required a production that showed respect to a co-star.
While this episode wasn't as bad as others (Missing Hours was terrible), it was a clear and likely deliberate deviation from what made this show such a success. It's amazing just how much better this episode could have been, and how easily so. But at this point, the show's producers were likely just slumming through the series, collecting their checks, and waiting for the end.
Miami Vice: Love at First Sight (1988)
Great actresses cast
While Sheena Easton is ok in this episode, the real actresses who shone were not only Iman but also the ever-interesting Lori Petty. Iman did a great job portraying the psychological turmoil toward the end of the episode that normally indicates Dissociative Identity Disorder. A tad bit sensationalized but I give Iman credit for pulling off a captivating performance in her limited screen time, which is not easy.
However, while I applaud Iman's work, I was much more captivated by Lori Petty's role as "Carol", a BDSM-ish type. Her scenes with Crockett in the bar and then at her home were so commanded by her performance that she outshined Johnson's Crockett. I came away with the feeling that I would have loved to see a future episode with Petty reprising her Carol character; this would have made for a top episode. But alas, MV didn't have too much farther to go before ending its run.
I don't know how this could have been executed but it would have been an interesting episode with Petty's Carol being pursued by Gina and/or Trudy for whatever crimes. Basically a Basic Instinct type arc before the actual movie. I think a women's arc (2-part series) with Gina, Trudy and Carol would work. Not sure how Easton would fit it, perhaps not, as she's not on the level of Petty. But Easton's a singer, not an actress, so it's forgivable.
Slasher (2004)
Good stereotype movie
I too saw this movie on IFC recently and was drawn in immediately, mostly because I've recently moved to Memphis. The "Slasher" is definitely the type of character you love to hate. A 24/7 drunk who's real high stems from his ego. Completely self-absorbed and so full of his own crap that he doesn't see the obvious disdain others have for him (dealership manager, his own DJ, etc). The fast-talking sleazeball versus the economically-challenged (and uneducated) masses. However there is no clear winner in my view because the masses are duped yet again and the lemon-pusher doesn't exactly get away with all the money. No Hollywoodized tragedy here, just the reality of the way things are in the used...ehem, "preowned"...car business. Buyer beware!