Cult Movies 101- Episode 33: Cocaine Wars

In order to succeed back in the heyday of VHS, all a movie really needed was clever box art and a strong tagline – basically just something to capture the imagination of an adventurous movie lover. With the tagline ” A lone American hero challenges the might of a viscous drug empire,” one can only imagine that “Cocaine Wars” is high-octane action. However, that assumption would be wrong, because this is an abysmal action picture that is a mess from start to finish.

The story has been done a million times. An American DEA agent in South America is undercover. He has seen some bad things and decides to take down the system without the help of anyone. Along the way he meets an old flame, and has some witty banter with the villain while they play an intense game of cat and mouse. Never groundbreaking cinema, but in a competent filmmaker’s hands, it often can be captivating stuff. Sadly, nobody competent was involved in this picture.

One principal and unspoken rule of action pictures is that when done right, the audience will overlook certain over-the-top aspects to the movie. We all know that Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone could not fight an army of villains with machine guns by themselves, but they are so good at convincing the audience they are this tough that we buy into the situation.

However, “Cocaine Wars” made a fatal mistake by using former “Dukes of Hazzard” star John Schneider as that lone American hero. The light, breezy charm that carried him in “Dukes of Hazzard” doesn’t work in what should have been an intense action yarn. Schneider plays DEA Agent Cliff Adams, and somehow manages to not do any real investigating. The character chain smokes throughout the picture, leading to an unbelievable scene where a car is chasing him – he jumps on the hood of the car and still manages to have the cigarette in his mouth.

But Schneider’s performance is only one of the major flaws here. Just try not to laugh when Adams tells the leader of the drug cartel, “Oh, by the way, I killed Klausmann on the way over here. Hope you don’t mind.”

Now, the back of the box states that Kathryn Witt plays the beautiful journalist in love with Adams, but she never does any journalistic work. And frankly, she isn’t all that beautiful, but that doesn’t stop the director from placing an awkward love scene into this turkey.

Another major issue with the film is the sloppy direction from Héctor Olivera, who didn’t seem to properly understand the concept of shooting the right amount of coverage needed for certain action sequences. During some of the film’s shootouts in the climax, you can tell exactly where insert shots were added. You see running, then it seems the actor or actress suddenly stops to wait to be shot and then continues to run.

The one thing that “Cocaine Wars” proves is that if “Mystery Science Theater 3000” ever decided to return to television, there are still many bad B movies left to spoof. If you ever stumble across this movie, just remember what Nancy Reagan said and just say no to “Cocaine Wars.”

About Anthony Benedetto 153 Articles
I have always had a tremendous passion for the cinema. For me, movies provide a great escape. When done right, the characters and stories are something that I am instantly drawn into. Over the years, I’ve unintentionally become a movie encyclopedia that I often find myself the recipient of late night phone calls from my friends while at Blockbuster [One such conversation between the Editor of this site and the film “Redbelt” immediately comes to mind.] As far as my preferences go however, I love both the cult cinema and the classics. My love of film ranges from features such as “Amadeus” to “Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl-A- Rama.” I have a long range of film heroes as well that include, Michael J. Fox, Lloyd Kaufman, Robby Benson, Michael Caine and Jeff Bridges. On this site, I hope to teach people about cult cinema and have them rent films that they normally would not, turning you into the monster that I have become. Someday, I hope to be the star and director of my cult film, employing the old stop motion techniques used in films like “Flesh Gordon.”

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