Kings of Coke for me is a documentary like the documentary from the American people that brought you Cocaine Cowboys, this documentary is more of the same although the difference is that this is about the Irish Mafia that went from Ireland to North America specifically Canada and even more specifically Montreal.
The just shy 90mins documentary talks about a gang that started off small and they were called the “The West End Gang” At first they were known as just bank robbers that would rob banks three times a week and sometimes the same bank twice in one day. To this point, the bank employees would know who the bank robbers were.
this true crime tells us about how it all started and how deep it went to the point that the corruption that was part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and how one of the highest members of the RCMP was so in bed with the gangsta’s that when the bad deeds that he did catch up with him he could not handle it and he decided to end his life rather than face the music.
We also have a lawyer whom we get to hear his back story about he used to be a bad guy well a hardened thief and that he somehow became a lawyer and he would represent all the bad guys from the Mafia members in Canada to clients in Columbia and he would run with them and all this caught up with him to as he became a liability and the bad guys ended up killing him too.
All these documentaries are told about the people that were left behind like the henchmen that were gang members that left the gang and made something of themselves after going straight one became music promotor.
The strange thing is you also get to hear the story from an older cop now but at the time he was new to the force and was known to be the type that was not breakable and he would do everything in his power to bring down the bad guys within the laws. At the end of this show, you can see as he states there is no point as the bad guys always win and the only thing that keeps him asleep at night is the fact that if he can help a few and improve a few people’s lives then his work was worth it.
The last point I would like to make is the epic centre of all this was Montreal in Canada was known as the place to go see the gangsta’s at the time. The question is has this changed? Who knows?
An interesting short documentary that is worth a watch
My Rating