![]() The drug agents are not portrayed as saints. But considered as one clearly biased view - the D.E.A.'s - of the drug wars, ''Camarena'' is remarkably convincing in its cogent details. In terms of letter-perfect ''history,'' in short, the production can be easily faulted. She keeps popping up periodically to say things like: ''You marry a cop, you have to share him with the scum of the earth.'' Elizabeth Pena, playing his wife, Mika, is reduced to being a device to include the so-called woman's angle in this male-monopolized story. The figure of Camarena - depicted passionately by Steven Bauer - is of course real. Nelson), Camarena's boss and close friend, whose angry determination keeps the investigation moving forward Ray Carson (Treat Williams), a New York policeman sent to Guadalajara to head a special task force pursuing the killers, and Tony Riva (Miguel Ferrer), a special agent in Guadalajara, created from the stories of four real agents. Major characters, primarily among the Americans, are composites. This being a docudrama, complete with real Tom Brokaw news reports, there are the inevitable adjustments made under the fuzzy heading of dramatic license. Mann continues the drug story without the distractions of music-video glitz. A connection between drug profits and the financing of American plots to overthrow the Sandinistas was being noted long before the White House was caught up publicly in the Iran-contra scandal. Beneath the rock music and Don Johnson's fashionable clothes and cars, many episodes were remarkably attuned to the realities of drug dealings in the greater Miami area. Not insignificantly, the executive producer is Michael Mann, whose television action-adventure credits include writing episodes of ''Starsky and Hutch'' and ''Police Story'' back in the 1970's and, the last decade, being executive producer of ''Miami Vice'' and ''Crime Story.'' ''Miami Vice'' was a landmark series in more ways than one. ![]() The television story is told, with unflagging sympathy, from the drug agency's point of view. officials waged their own campaign, in the press and on the streets, to find Camarena's killers. Stonewalled by Mexican - and American - authorities in the subsequent investigation, D.E.A. While the book covers a large canvas, from Guatemala and Colombia to Panama, the television adaptation focuses on Mexico and the abduction and murder in 1985 of Enrique (Kiki) Camarena, a United States Drug Enforcement Administration agent based in Guadalajara. Her basic attitude is reflected in the subtitle: ''Latin Drug Lords, U. The script is based on the book ''Desperadoes'' by Elaine Shannon, a reporter for Time magazine and a veteran observer of the drug scene. The reasons range from obscene profits and widespread corruption to national interests and geopolitical maneuverings.Ī portion of the discouraging situation has now been dramatized in a sprawling and messy, yet powerful, television movie called ''Drug Wars: The Camarena Story.'' The six-hour NBC presentation begins tonight at 9 and continues tomorrow and Tuesday at the same hour. The current drug crisis provides ample proof that this particular war has been a colossal failure. While I rage on about copyright, at the same time I'm no friend of piracy either, from my perspective I see paranoid copyright and anarchic piracy as two sides of the same coin, with most people not getting pirate products most of the time.īut when copyright infringes on law abiding consumers in the case of classic shows not coming out on DVD, I have no sympathy for media companies when people get pirate copies of television shows that were not made available in the first place, with the only people legitimately cheated being the public.The United States' ''war on drugs'' was first declared by President Richard Nixon in the early 1970's. Due to the greed and inpersonal contempt of the entertainment industry, and the borderline unworkable music copyright in America, many dozens of popular televison shows have sadly not seen the light of day on legitimate DVD (although in Adam West Batman's case it is two or three different production companies squabbling over it's exclusive legal rights).īecause of the easily avoidable blunders made by the studios, no official DVDs or legal downloads of televisions made available to the public would obviously fuel piracy, with consumers forced to get what they want from less reputable sources.
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