Directed by: Matthew Cooke.
How
to Make Money Selling Drugs is a documentary that basically argues that America
should makes drugs legal – and wraps the argument up in a glittering package
that takes the form of an infomercial, or a motivational speaker, showing just
how easy it is to make money selling illegal drugs. I may well agree with some
of the points made in the documentary – but I still don’t think very much of
the movie, which is cynical in the extreme for the first hour, and then gets
downright preachy in the final half hour. Stick with Eugene Jarecki’s excellent
The House I Live In if you want to see a documentary about the War on Drugs
that actually takes what its subject seriously.
The
film’s opening scenes are all flash – presenting the different levels of drug
dealing as levels in a videogame, going from street dealer all the way up to
kingpin. The movie has interviews with many past, current and future drug
dealers, who let you in on their trade secrets. This goes on for nearly an
hour, and is overwhelming with all the information it throws at you – some of
which I found hard to believe, but since I don’t have the stats in front of me,
perhaps I’ll just leave that alone. But those facts are buried underneath all
the flash and pomp of the films relentless, headache inducing style. The film
never really slows down – never really lets anyone talk for very long, before
it dives headlong into its next section, it’s next barrage of facts and
figures, it’s next celebrity interview.
After
an hour of this cynicism wrapped up in a shiny package, the movie turns preachy
– with the basic style of the first hour all but abandoned, so the narrator can
tell us a history lesson about the War on Drugs – from Nixon until today – with
yet more facts and figures shouted at the audience. The whole movie was
basically too overwhelming – it never settles down to make its points, it just
dives headlong from one point to the next.
Do
some of the arguments the movie is making make sense? Yes, they do. The War on
Drugs is hugely expensive, and not very effective, and the laws on the books
are almost blatantly racist – punishing blacks far more heavily for their
transgressions as whites. And yet, while I agree with at least some of the
movie, I could never really get into it. It’s all too overwhelming and
scattershot to be effective – not to mention glib and cynical.
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