59
Metascore
19 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Film ThreatK.J. DoughtonFilm ThreatK.J. DoughtonTraveling faster than a fat line of blow snorted from mirror to nose, Cocaine Cowboys is all rush and no crash.
- 88New York Daily NewsJack MathewsNew York Daily NewsJack MathewsIf "The Godfather" movies were based on real gangsters and some of them were still around to talk about the good old days, they might be as fascinating as the characters in Billy Corben's documentary about the cocaine import business in 1970s Miami.
- 83The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayThe A.V. ClubNoel MurrayUltimately, Cocaine Cowboys' lesson isn't that crime doesn't pay, but that it maybe pays too well.
- 75TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghCocaine cash financed Miami's renaissance, but the film never downplays the human cost at which that urban renewal was purchased.
- 70VarietyRonnie ScheibVarietyRonnie ScheibA rogues gallery of flamboyant gangsters paint an anecdote-rich portrait of the drug trade, while a steady stream of cops, coroners and crime reporters furnish social commentary.
- 70SalonAndrew O'HehirSalonAndrew O'HehirAn exhaustive, exciting and ultimately exhausting history of how that white powder, and the Colombian crime lords who imported it by the hundreds of kilos, transformed the culture and economy of Miami, for good and for ill.
- 67Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanCocaine Cowboys, which at times seems like it could have been edited by someone on coke, comes at you as a vast bloody river of underworld information.
- 60Village VoiceVillage VoiceThe story is fascinating, if a little overlong.
- 30The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisThe New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisCocaine Cowboys is a tabloid headline, a movie as oppressive and inarticulate as the lives it represents.
- 25New York PostKyle SmithNew York PostKyle SmithThere are a couple of grams of interesting stories about Miami's drug traffic in Cocaine Cowboys, but the good stuff is cut with 50 kilos of cinematic baking soda.