Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami movie review (2021)

Cuban exiles, Magluta and Falcon became the kings of an operation that smuggled tons of cocaine into the United States (maybe over 100 tons actually). An empire that stretched to a reported $2 billion, they naturally became a target of the war on drugs in the 1980s, but the story of “Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami” isn’t a seedy breakdown of a criminal organization that glamorizes a violent and deadly lifestyle. In fact, Corben’s series really focuses on the legal proceedings against the two men, including a first trial that was altered greatly via jury tampering, and an eventual series of decisions by one of the key players who basically took Magluta down.

Corben lets the people involved tell their stories, and he gets amazing ones from all sides of this incredible tale, including criminals, authorities, and even a few of the jurors (this story gets insane with jury stories in a way that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before, including a physical alteration in the jury room and multiple revelations of payouts to jurors). There’s a revealing playfulness to the interviews here that gives the project its energy. One might argue that some of these career criminals are almost too comfortable—you might pause to ask yourself if you should be so entertained by drug kingpins—but Corben and his team deftly walk that line where it doesn’t feel like he’s elevating the criminal scene as much as revealing the colorful characters that defined it.

And it’s not just the criminals. “Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami” develops into a much more well-rounded project by spending almost as much time with the men and women on the other side of the law, including the prosecutors who tried to take down Magluta and Falcon. Even the defense team, including the amazing Albert Krieger, get some wonderful sound bites, but Marilyn Bonachea really steals the series. She’s the one that viewers will be talking about, a key player in the organization who kept it going until she felt it betrayed her.