'Hotel Cocaine' on MGM+ gives viewers disco, drama and plenty of blow in Miami in the late '70s
The lapels are wide, “Disco Inferno” is blasting and lines and lines of nose candy are... 'Hotel Cocaine' on MGM+ is set in 1978 and follows the story of the general manager, Roman Compte, played by Danny Pino, who becomes involved in organized crime. The show is about immigration to the US and trying to achieve the American dream, while also about a man trying to protect his daughter from unsavory federal agents and his estranged brother. The series is heavily influenced by music from the era, including Latin sounds and pop classics like Eric Clapton's "Cocaine." The show's hero, who played real-life Roman Compse, is played by Maurice Compto. Brancato managed to secure the rights to use Dire Straits "Sultans of Swing" at a discount due to Mark Knopfler's fan of "Narcos."
Опубликовано : 10 месяцев назад от By MARK KENNEDY, AP Entertainment Writer в Entertainment
“Hotel Cocaine,” set in 1978, centers on the hotel’s general manager, Roman Compte (played by Danny Pino), a Cuban expatriate who caters to high-end hotel patrons. He slowly gets sucked into a life of crime trying to protect his daughter from unsavory federal agents on one side, and his equally unsavory estranged brother, a mobster, on the other.
“This show has become about many things. It’s about immigration to this country and trying to achieve the American dream. It’s also about a man caught in a perilous moral quandary of trying to save his daughter at the risk of betraying his brother from whom he’s estranged.”
Brancato says he created a careful balance between a “meat and potatoes drug show” and comedy. “I wanted there to be a sense of humor to what is otherwise could be a kind of dark and very dreary subject matter,” he says.
The series is enlivened by music from the era, including Latin sounds and pop classics, like Eric Clapton's “Cocaine.” Brancato managed to get the rights to use Dire Straits “Sultans of Swing” at a discount because singer-guitarist Mark Knopfler was a fan of “Narcos.”
The action takes place inside and outside the Mutiny nightclub, which was the jewel of the 138-room Mutiny Hotel. The hotel still exists, the nightclub — which also inspired the movie “Scarface” — doesn't.
“You not only had the cocaine trade flowing through the Mutiny. But you had lawyers, money launderers and intelligence officers. All those roads converged in that little place,” says Vazquez, whose sister partied at the nightclub in her youth.
The show's hero also was a real man: Roman Compte. His son, “Narcos” actor Maurice Compte, brought his father's experiences to Brancato, who started fictionalizing. (Pino worked with the younger Compte on “Mayans MC” and asked him plenty of questions about his dad.)
“For me, it’s not interesting to do these crime shows unless you can find some interesting new angles. So, for example, ‘Godfather of Harlem’ is the collision of organized crime and civil rights, two things that actually don’t really belong in the same sense.”
“It’s just filled with all kinds of buttons," says Vazquez, whose brother was a political prisoner in Cuba. "I want to say it’s filled with memories, but it’s more than memories. It’s proper buttons. I jumped at wanting to do this.”
Темы: Cocaine, Drug Trafficking, Social-ESG