User reviews

The real Cocaine Grandmother, Griselda Blanco was known for executing literally hundreds of men, women, and even children who either interfered with her drug smuggling empire, or who simply pissed her off. In reality, being remotely involved with Griselda Blanco and her drug cartel empire was enough of a reason for considering a person to already have one foot in the grave including her sons and various husbands.

This loosely based biography has the attractive Catherine Zeta-Jones attempting rather poorly to represent Griselda Blanco as the bi-sexual mother and wife as well as the vicious and extremely homely real-life cocaine grandmother. What results is a less than inspiring attempt at a high level historical adaptation of the cocaine grandmother, her sons, husbands, and lovers outwitting the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agents) for decades all rolled up in a two (2) hour film I would call a non event, worthy of only a mediocre 5 out of 10 rating.

In the description It should read...The real Life of a ColOmbian drug lord.

I don't why they haven't made more movies about Griselda Blanco, regarding the fact that she was one of the leading people responsible for the drug war in the 70-80's, other than the fact that she was a woman. She was a major player within the drug game, but like I said because she was a woman, she doesn't get movies like "Blow" and "American Made", even though many kingpins probably got their cocaine from her. Anyway, the movie I thought for a made for TV film was decent, not Oscar worthy, nor Raspberry worthy, lol. Like when Carolina's eyes move lying in the bed, I laughed, (you will know what I am talking about when you see it). Otherwise, I enjoyed the movie, and thought it was a good film. I stayed focused throughout the movie. If it had a more of a budget, the movie could have been a lot bigger than what it was.

I knew there would be lots of them. She was cast because she was the best option. She did a great acting job even if the movie wasn't factually correct,

6.1

Even tho I don't know the story about Griselda Blanco, I am sure the storytelling here is completely inaccurate. Anyway, I did not mind spending the time watching this movie because it was fun, goofy, with great acting, plus Ketrin never seems to dissapoint, even in the most desperate movies. 6/10

The life of drug lord Griselda Blanco, a pioneer in the Miami-based cocaine trade. At the age of 17, Griselda Blanco, made her way to the U.S. with a fake passport with her first husband Carlos. Living in Queens with her three sons, Griselda became enticed by the money the drug world offered, and quickly became embroiled with local drug runners. Griselda masterminded the use of beautiful women, the elderly and children as the mules and created false-bottom suitcases to smuggle cocaine from Colombia. With money rolling in, her sons abandoned school and entered the family business instead.

CZ Jones is good in the movie but man it is painfully slow. It's like they had to add a ton of padding to fill the allotted TV slot on Lifetime . The movie should have been in a 90minute slot -- in other words with the commercials out about 65-70 minutes .

The way it is now, it's just drags on and on until you want to shut it off.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is a talented actress who has made good films before (Chicago, etc.) But this one is a very bad choice for her. With all the talented Latina actresses out there couldn't they have found one to play Griselda, this more than life character? Just because a white woman has really dark hair does not a Latina she make. The accent is Horrible and there are times when you hear a slip of her Welsh come out. Not only that, but while her clothes are very nice, however they make her look old like she is 60 instead of a woman in her thirties. Those scarves make her look like a cancer patient(no disrespect to said patients). The music was great but Catherine danced horribly in it. She's a trained dancer and I am not sure why they had her "dancing" like that.

Lifetime, your movies are usually cheesy but everybody likes them so do better next time. If you want to do a movie about someone who is not white, make sure you cast actors that actually fit the role. It would be much more believable.

Guillermo Navarro, primarily know for his cinematography in some big blockbusters was also the director in this film. This was a bad decision.

His cinematography skills were absent in this film, and although his directing was decent behind the camera, he failed in directing his actors.. miserably.

The acting, even for a TV film, was very sub par. You can't put all the blame on Catherine Zeta-Jones, she did as well as she was directed (also considering she hasn't been active in her career lately), as did the rest of the cast. Perhaps the director did his best as well with such a poorly assembled screenplay by amateur Molly McAlpine (her first and only writing credit). Writer David McKenna did an ok job on a story that I feel would have been better produced as a blockbuster production, not a TV film.

The story was what kept me interested in this film, and it was told rather decent, even if narrated by the DEA agent (I'm not a fan of narrated films). I've never heard of Griselda Blanco until this film, and am shocked no one has decided to produced this as a blockbuster film, as there's much to tell in a far more interesting production that I fell would be a hit on the big screen. Maybe someone will finally step up now.

A great story that held my interest, even if produced poorly, even by made-for-TV standards. I'd probably see it again, but hopefully in a bigger, better big-screen production.

It's an 8/10 from me

I think if griselda was still alive and on top of her game she would either gives this movie a ten or kill everyone responsible for this making her look so stupid. Watch cc and cc2; much more interesting and actually factual. It's not about the money. Lots of good movies are made on the cheap. No, this is just bad writing, bad directing, and pretty much bad everything else. Too bad too because griselda, even though a violent charismatic psychopath, makes for a great story. Czj must be related to someone in the production or owe a favor. I'm sure she doesn't need the money so why would she make such a fool of herself. Or, maybe she took control of production and direction and just ran it off the rails. Well whoever is responsible for this schlock should buy up all the copies, burn them, hire a hacker to erase any trace on the web and then go into the witness protection program.

If you know the real story of Griselda Blanco you'll realize how bad this movie is. Doesn't even come close to what really happened. You want to watch something, watch Cocaine Cowboys.!!! Because of that documentary, I really do not know why this movie was made.

This is a poorly shot and produced movie. Almost shocking to see CZJ in a movie as low class as this one. Do not pay to see it!

Well this was a slow low budget tv-production with one ''super star '' actor,trying to tell the story about griselda, which i would say was the most infamous drug queen-pin of all in american history.

i would instead in this review recommend the high octan documentaries COCAINE COWBOYS 1 AND 2 ,that gives a very in depth look,from the insiders driving this era of drug history.here you will also find a thouroghly told story about griselda,and what mighty powers and horrors she spread around the united states.

the acting in this film are at b/c-level,even zeta made a poor job on this set. it is a biographical film,but the presentation and pace are very slow. overall a dissapointment.

This would be a 'stoned review'...i picked this up at the video store without checking the rating prior to seeing it or hearing anything about it...risky...paid off...as i watched it i thought stuff like 'Soderburgh, Traffic, Zorro, (the show she played the Mexican artist was wow)...Tarentino's film where she danced, wow...Scorcese...wonderful camera shots...acting wonderful...Katherine is so much fun to watch and this story was as good , and moved along like , 'Goodfellas'...it is a wonderful 'tribute' to mobster films and is pulled off, as far as i'm concerned by a , woman...interesting story, too...i am hard pressed to find anything wrong with this film...Katherine blew me away...i mean Sharon Stone, Julie Christie good...great film

There's absolutely nothing right about this film. The editing is so bad it should have never being approved. The performances from the cast are sub-par to say the least. Photography is OK but suffers with the horrible editing.

Total garbage. I could barely watch it to the end.

The story line of this movie lacks a complete substance that could have been easily avoided if they kept true to the actual facts. The fact the writers skewed to the side is a major reason why this movie failed for me, I have no idea why the writers fabricated so much in what I could only assume was an attempt to make it more interesting in their eyes. The narration was annoying and starts to grate away at the start only plunging this this film further down the drain. In the end its a drab poor boring story.

A complete mess of a film. Poor acting from everyone involved. No direction. No vision. A waste of a very interesting story and person.

Catherine did a superb job in the fact filled exciting movie. Blanco was one of the richest lady in the world and this is her exciting story.

A must for all.

The acting, the writing, the production...all of it was absolutely terrible. Catherine was a poor casting choice as well.

I watched this movie when it was on TV and found myself waiting for the commercials as they were more interesting than the film.

I have no idea how this film got the green light. Everything, and I mean everything in this movie is horrible. The script seems like something a high school kid would have written that graduated with a 1.0 GPA.

Obviously I wasn't there so who knows but based on other sources this tv-movie isn't portraying events of her life very accurately. Apparently she was all that, and some, but what other materials have shown she wasn't nearly that present at the killings. Also we are missing important people of her story such as Rivi (Jorge Ayala), or at least there is no character of his backstory and how they met. In the end if you'd like to get to know her I'd choose other material as source, if you're looking for some entertainment, again I'd go for other entertainment. But I guess it's watchable if you already have your popcorn and beer set up.