7 of the best...
DRUGS CARTEL MOVIES
1 SCARFACE (1983)
CLASSIC Al Pacino film role which sees him playing ambitious Cuban immigrant Tony Montana who becomes the head of a drugs cartel. The publicity for the film ran: “He loved the American Dream. With a Vengeance.” Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay and Brian De Palma dropped out of directing Flashdance to work on Scarface because he liked the script so much.
2 CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (1994)
THE follow-up to 1992 movie Patriot Games saw Harrison Ford back as CIA analyst Jack Ryan caught up this time in a battle involving the US government and a Colombian drug cartel. The body count quickly starts to rise as Ryan tries to get to the bottom of the conspiracy and he angrily says: “I didn’t sign up for this. This is someone’s bullsh*t political agenda.”
3 TRAFFIC (2000)
MICHAEL Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Dennis Quaid and Benicio del Toro head the cast in this movie directed by Steven Soderbergh centred around a major new offensive as part of America’s war on drugs. The gritty film won four Oscars and was shot in more than 110 locations in eight different cities including Tijuana and Mexico City.
4 ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (2003)
ACTION thriller with Antonio Banderas, Selma Hayek and Johnny Depp about a Mexican drug lord who pretends to overthrow the government. Rubber prop guns were used in the first weeks of filming because the real ones were delayed at the Mexican border for two weeks. All the visual effects in the shooting scenes were added digitally in post-production.
5 NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)
THE movie about a drugs deal gone wrong won four Oscars including the best supporting actor for Javier Bardem, inset, as psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh. He is asked to eliminate everyone involved in the theft of the drug money. An assignment he quickly embarks on with a single-minded ruthless efficiency.
6 END OF WATCH (2012)
A MEXICAN drugs cartel orders the death of two cops who are becoming bad for business. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña play the two LA police pals who suddenly discover they have a price on their heads. The movie, shot in documentary-style, has the distinction for having one of the highest count of swear words. The f word alone is said 326 times.
7 THE COUNSELOR (2013)
DIRECTOR Ridley Scott brings together Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem in a violent film about a successful lawyer who finds himself a target for the drugs cartels when he becomes entangled in a deal that goes badly wrong. Soon he and his fiancée find themselves fighting to stay alive as the killers get closer.