Cocaine Wars

• Directed by Héctor Olivera
• June 25, 1985

An undercover DEA agent investigating one of the biggest cocaine exporters refuses a hit for the drug lord and decides to strike back before it’s too late.

Cocaine Wars is one of those very by the numbers direct-to-video action films that knows what all goes into an 80s action film but has no idea how to make those ingredients work. It’s filled with every 80s one-man war cliché. Or it contains a lot of them anyway. The guy running into a former flame unexpectedly. Corrupt locals at every level. An almost evitable torture scene. A drug lord running cocaine to the appearance of doing so exclusively from some fictitious Latin American country. So ery 80s.

John Schneider of Dukes of Hazzard fame stars as undercover DEA agent Cliff Vickry though you never actually see him directly interact with superiors while working for drug kingpin Gonzalo Reyes (Federico Luppi) and his very German henchmen Klausmann (Ivan Grey) and Wilhelm (Richard Hamlin) because that’s what happens in these things. Klausmann and Wilhelm are unintentionally funny. It was like that Mike Myers character Dieter from Saturday Night Live.

Schneider is not bad. He has a flat charisma that works in this Corman produced film. He does not have the build of Schwarzenegger or Stallone or even the tone of Van Damme but it is certainly better than Seagal at his fittest. Schneider does his best when doing the conversations to his higher ups. We never get a voice for or cut to someone on the other end making it like a serious version of Bob Newhart’s phone call routine.

There’s a tepid romance with the with a reporter named Janet (Kathryn Witt) who may or may not have consistently known that John Schneider was not actually a pilot for a drug kingpin. Did they meet under his false identity or under his true self? They have some surprisingly good chemistry for what this is.

Royal Dano who was a fixture in film for years shows up as Bailey-a coked out old man who is part of the drug smuggling scene. If you know who Royal Dano is it might be a little tough picturing him as a coked out old man that’s part of ANY drug running scene. I write that and it boggles my mind.

Cliff Vickry’s clothing as well as that of the pudgy German guy are very crisp as if they are fresh from the rack. These look brand new. Reyes clothing is more on the casually used side like he was dressed in what he wore to set that day. Then again I think the budget was virtually non-existent in comparison to other action films of the time so they blew it on three costumes.

The action is better than some action from the time in these cheap bits of content creation. They lean heavily on explosions for the climax and Schneider’s not as toned as others body for the rest. This was clearly his attempt to reframe his image and it just didn’t. Still though as bad 80s movies go it’s not bad. Never gets to guilty pleasure but with all the gunplay and explosion here and there it scratches the need.

Cocaine Wars never finds a strong footing so  I just can’t recommend this for any reason other than to see a bygone style of film not well done.