Lots of films have made a run at capturing the scope of money, power, political influence and violence that accompanies drug cartels but most either missed the mark (The Infiltrator, Clear and Present Danger, Snitch) or were just straight up silly (License to Kill, Gringo, The Counsellor, the 2019 Miss Bala remake). Benicio del Toro probably holds the record for starring in the most big-budget features about drug cartels. So far, he's appeared in five. Here are the 8 best (Benicio's in two):
8. Triple Frontier
7. 2 Guns
2 Guns begins with two undercover investigations into a Mexican drug cartel. Unbeknownst to each other Robert "Bobby" Beans runs point for the DEA while Michael "Stig" Stigman gathers evidence as part of his job as an Intelligence Specialist for the U.S. Navy SEALs. Hoping to ultimately bring cartel-head Manny "Papi" Greco down for money laundering, the two rob a bank they suspect holds $3 million of his money (Bobby wants to bust Greco, Stig is ordered to steal the cash for use in funding future undercover operations). During the robbery, they discover $43.125 million in the bank's vault, which Stig absconds with after leaving a bullet in the DEA agent's shoulder. However, Stig narrowly avoids being murdered by his fellow SEALs when his boss, Lieutenant Commander Harold Quince, learns that Bobby's still alive.
Meanwhile, CIA operative "Earl" is tracking down the money for his own reasons. After he frames Beans for the murder of his supervisor, DEA Special Agent Jessup, Beans and Stig decide to work together to find a way out of the mess they've landed in. The duo kidnaps Greco, who reveals that the $43 million is part of a CIA slush fund extorted from drug cartels in exchange for transporting the organizations' product across the U.S. border via agency planes. However, an attack by Quince's unit allows Greco to escape and he and his men in turn kidnap Beans, Stig and Beans' ex-girlfriend and fellow DEA Special Agent Deb Rees. Given 24 hours to retrieve the dough from Quince in exchange for Deb's life, the pair sneak onto the naval base where Quince is stationed to do just that. But they learn that you just can't trust anybody when it's revealed that Quince is Deb's new boyfriend and the couple's true plan was to keep the mula for themselves.
After Deb is murdered, Stig, Beans, Quince and Earl all converge on Greco's farm in Mexico, resulting in a five-way shootout. In the aftermath, Earl, Greco and Quince are dead and the money is destroyed. And as payback for his earlier wound, Beans shoots Stig in the leg.
6. Savages
Mo' money, mo' problems. Just when best friends Chon and Ben achieve so much success with their weed operation that all of their problems seem to be in the rearview, the business attracts the attention of a Mexican drug cartel. While the duo is more than happy to retire and hand their entire enterprise over, the cartel insists that they stick around as junior partners. See, Ben developed their particularly popular strain of Mary Jane using his expertise in botany cultivated at Berkeley and drug conglomerate wants to keep tapping into his know-how.
Unwilling to effectively become employees for an organization that uses murder and dismemberment to keep people in line, Chon and Ben decide to disappear to Indonesia. But before they can make the getaway, the pair's shared girlfriend, Ophelia, is kidnapped by the cartel's chief enforcer, Miguel "Lado" Arroyo in order to pressure them into sticking around. Since Chon is a former Navy SEAL, he decides to fight back (with help from some of his former colleagues). After pressuring a corrupt DEA agent to hand over intel on the cartel, the ex-SEALs begin a harassment campaign that culminates in the murders of seven sicarios and the kidnapping of cartel-head Elena Sanchez's daughter, Magda.
Chon and Ben arrange a prisoner exchange in a desert, which results in the safe return of both Magda and Ophelia and DEA arrest of Elena. Lado subsequently assumes control of the cartel and Elena's ultimately sentenced to 30 years in prison.
5. Miami Vice
The film adaptation of popular 80s television show "Miami Vice" turns the substance up a notch and dials the style of the series way down for a much grittier take on the dealings of the Miami-Dade Police Department's vice squad.
After detectives Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs and James "Sonny" Crockett learn that the wife of one of their former confidential informants, Alonzo Stevens, has been murdered, the duo go deep undercover in order to investigate the Colombian cartel responsible.
4. No Country for Old Men
After Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss stumbles onto a murder scene and loads of drug money, he takes the cash home and stashes it. But the Mexican drug cartel that the dough belongs to want it back and the organization's top sicario, Anton Chigurh, is sent to retrieve it. And he's not nice about it.
No Country for Old Men is basically The Terminator without the science-fiction. It's a real world nightmare. There are plenty of comedies about guys finding drug money and calling "Finders, keepers!" (like Meet the Blacks). But if you tried that in real life the aftermath might not be so funny.
After Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss stumbles onto a murder scene and loads of drug money, he takes the cash home and stashes it. But the Mexican drug cartel that the dough belongs to want it back and the organization's top sicario, Anton Chigurh, is sent to retrieve it. And he's not nice about it.
3. Sicario
After FBI agents Reggie Wayne, a former attorney, and Kate Macer discover dozens of corpses in the walls of a safehouse tied to the Sonora Cartel, Kate is recruited to join a Department of Justice special joint task force dedicated to bringing down high-ranking cartel member Manuel Diaz.
After accompanying the task force, led by CIA agent Matt Graver and Alejandro Gillick, on a mission to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico to apprehend Diaz's brother Guillermo, Kate witnesses the team kill several gang members connected to the cartel at the U.S.-Mexico border. When Reggie, who never trusted Graver, questions him about the task force's true objective, it's revealed that the operation's real target is cartel-head Fausto Alarcon and that the team is simply working its way up the ladder to the boss.
The team subsequently executes a raid on a Phoenix bank tied to the cartel, which prompts the organization to target Kate. After Gillick subdues a dirty cop and cartel operative who attempts to murder her, Kate learns that she was included in the raid so that she could be used as bait.
Graver eventually admits that because the CIA is prohibited from operating inside the U.S., Kate was only recruited so that her FBI status could be used as legal cover for the task force's stateside activities. He also reveals that U.S. government decision-makers have concluded that the drug trade would be much more manageable if it was controlled by a single cartel as opposed to several competing groups.
During another clandestine mission to Mexico, Gillick, a former prosecutor trained to be a killer by the CIA following his family's murder by the cartel, shoots Kate for attempting to stop him from kidnapping a Mexican police officer working for the cartel. He goes on to murder the officer and Diaz's entire family in retaliation for ordering his own family's murder.
Following the mission, Kate realizes that she's way in over her head when Gillick breaks into her apartment and forces her to sign a waiver -- at gunpoint -- protecting the team from legal repercussions. Before leaving, he advises her to go into hiding and to find another line of work.
2. Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded
In the summer of 2006, Cocaine Cowboys was released to limited theaters without much fanfare. When it was aired on Showtime a year later, it generated the highest ratings of any documentary in the network's 31 year history. The cable airings combined with the DVD release made it a cult-classic. The sequel, Cocaine Cowboys II: Hustlin' With the Godmother, was released two years after it's predecessor and featured a narrower focus. Since then, director Billy Corben has released several other projects, including an excellent documentary about the University of Miami football program during the 1980s and early 90s. Eight years after the release of the original, Corben turned his lens back to the even more violent side of southern Florida to deliver not another sequel, but a continuation of the film that shot his career into the stratosphere.
While the original Cocaine Cowboys featured news footage and interviews with journalists, law enforcement officials and convicted murderers detailing the transformation of Miami, Florida from a quiet, southern town into the murder capital of the U.S. during the 1980s, Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded features just that -- more of the same, which in this case is a very good thing. Corben apparently had to make some tough decisions in the editing room. As refreshingly fast-paced as it is, it's doubtful that many people would wanna sit through a documentary longer than Cowboys' 116-minute running time. Generally speaking, Reloaded covers the same ground as it's namesake, but it never feels like a rehash. Composer Jan Hammer, who rose to fame as the creator of the score for Miami Vice (including it's chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning theme song), even returns to score the film. Many of the same interviewees reapper ,but they tell stories that were missing on the 1st go 'round. Like Hammer, they hit different notes this time.
Jorge "Rivi" Ayala, chief enforcer for Colombian drug trafficker Griselda Blanco, gives an account of multiple killings in which he was involved - sometimes as the actual triggerman. Blanco, incidentally, who was one of the subjects of Cowboys II, is estimated to have ordered over 200 murders before being shot to death in 2012. Miami native and son of an NFL player, Mickey Munday, is back to recount more of his days as a pilot and smuggler, his years as a fugitive and eventual capture by U.S. Marshals. Mark Wahlberg is in talks to portray flamboyant smuggler-turned-informant Jon Roberts in an upcoming film adaptation of the latter's autobiography, American Desperado. Roberts details his life of crime beginning with his arrest for kidnapping, to his time in Vietnam, to working with the Medellin Cartel and eventual drug trafficking conviction.
History can't be re-written of course (except in public school textbooks). Reloaded details the same era and drug wars that inspired the 1983 Scarface and the enormously popular television show, Miami Vice. But keep in mind, Scarface was so long that it required an intermission and Miami Vice aired for five seasons. The crime scene and autopsy photos in Reloaded are not for those with weak stomachs, but they bring home the grim realities of the drug trade like Tony Montana and Sonny Crockett never could.
1. Scarface
Though Miami-based, Cuban drug kingpin Tony Montana is the focus of Scarface, Alejandro Sosa's Bolivian cartel leader is higher in the food chain. Though the DEA; crooked Miami narcotics detective Mel Burnstein; chainsaw-wielding coke jackers; local rivals the, Diaz Brothers; his former boss, Frank Lopez; and even his own sister target him, it's Sosa's team of sicarios that ultimately do Tony in.
Updated 8/8/19
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