Hotel Cocaine Season 1 Episode 1-4 Early Review

The following is a spoiler-free review of the first 4 episodes of Hotel Cocaine. The series premieres tomorrow on MGM+.

The 1970s and 80s are portrayed in TV and film as some of the most surreal and hedonistic periods in recent history with many aspects of these decades being focused on a climate that was pushing back against what had been perceived as “normal” by the generations before it. It was a time of war, unrest, uncertainty…and drugs. Hotel Cocaine sets its narrative on the Miami cocaine scene via the Hotel Mutiny, a place where anyone can come and enjoy whatever it may be that they desire in order to forget their troubles and the world outside its walls. For owner Mark Feuerstein (Burton Greenburg) and Hotel Manager, Roman Compte (Danny Pino), this means that business is always booming, however, as DEA agents, drug cartels and celebrities begin to mix within its borders, things become more complicated than ensuring that the customer is always right.

On paper, Hotel Cocaine sounds somewhat appealing. The allure of a time gone by where anything goes within certain square footage is interesting and mix in the volatility of drugs and its early days as its sellers rise to power while the government constantly pursues these offenders offering many intriguing plot lines to be explored with all of them able to intersect in one convenient location for the sake of this series. However, the description of the series is where any true enticement for the series concludes as the actual story quickly relies on well-trodden territory and low-hanging tropes to propel it from episode to episode.

The story primarily focuses on Compte, who is tasked with ensuring that the hotel runs smoothly, all guests are attended to, and that a form of peace between drug traffickers, DEA agents and buyers is maintained while on hotel property. This quickly unravels when Agent Zulio (Michael Chiklis) begins to extort Compte with the safety of his daughter, Valeria (Corina Bradley), in exchange for information on his brother Nestor Cabal (Yul Vazquez), one of the leading drug traffickers in that era. Compte is forced to balance the eternal connection of family with the future of maintaining his own as he has to stay multiple steps ahead of both the cartel and DEA agents in order to survive. Compte continually digs himself deeper and deeper into a narrative hole. Some portions can offer surprising twists to the story, but otherwise, it relies on moves that the audience can see coming which severely hinders any emotional investment from the viewer.

Additionally, several subplots are explored throughout the series which focus on the hotel’s top female entertainer, Janice (Laura Gordon), and her dark past from which she is seeking refuge and the owner, Feuerstein, who falls into a procedural rhythm of helping celebrities such as author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson and musician Rick James making appearances in the first several episodes as Feuerstein helps deal with some of their issues. While this offers a break from the heavier Compte plot, it easily finds itself becoming an eye-rolling experience that does very little beyond providing Burton Greenberg with several well-written monologues summarizing the life of many in that era. But even so, it feels so disjointed to oscillate from cartel shootouts and looming death to Rick James discussing his writer’s block while doing cocaine lines in a club booth.

At first glance, Hotel Cocaine looks to offer an entertaining story exploiting an era that is known for its outlandish existence. Still, it does not take long to realize that beyond this premise, everything else is paper thin. The actors do their best to bring life to their roles, however, they are continually let down by meandering plot lines and a poor script that never truly challenges their abilities to stretch within their roles. With prominent figures such as Feuerstein, Pino, Chiklis, and Vazquez, it seems like a large misstep that could have been remedied with more time or eyes on the product.

The series seeks to be grittier than it can truly be and suffers because of this false ambition. It is a series that, while it flashes moments of intrigue, is destined to become lost on the shelves of the relentlessly growing streaming library that viewers continually navigate. It can be seen and quickly forgotten which is a crime in and of itself because there is a kernel of something decent within its attempt but it was never allowed to become something more.

still courtesy of MGM+

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Critics w/o Credentials

Trying my best to get all thoughts about TV and Film out of my head and onto the interweb.