‘Hotel Cocaine’ Takes the Cocaine Wars Bloody Seriously — but Cue the Laughs Anyway

“We like crime shows, at least some of us do,” writer and producer Chris Brancato told IndieWire. “We like gangster shows. We like watching people do the things that we would never do ourselves. And yet, they’ve all been done a million times.”

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His own oeuvre seems to support that — but only at first glance. The creator of “Narcos,” “Godfather of Harlem,” and now MGM+’s “Hotel Cocaine” would seem to have found a very buzzy (buzzed?) niche for himself as the prestige crime saga guy. But there’s more going on than just blow.

With “Narcos,” Brancato insisted to Netflix that the actors speak in Spanish, just as the real-life characters did. And “Godfather of Harlem” opened itself up to him once he discovered that Malcolm X was friends with crime boss Bumpy Johnson. And with “Hotel Cocaine,” he takes audiences on a bumpy ride from the highs of ’70s Miami decadence to the lows of the Cocaine Wars. But he doesn’t shy away from either, resulting in a tonally refreshing show.

Somehow, “Hiotel Cocaine” makes a cohesive whole out of plots as disparate as Mark Feuerstein’s Speedo-clad, coke-snorting hotelier entertaining Hunter S. Thompson and Danny Pino’s morally compromised hotel manager joining in with his cartel boss brother’s business dealings (blackmailed into it by a single-minded DEA agent).

“To me, what was particularly interesting was creating Burton, the owner of the hotel, who would walk this line of the navel-gazing of the ’70s, the Me decade, the self-involvement, the ridiculousness of it all,” Brancato said. “And you blend this hard-edged, violent drug show with the pleasure principle. I said at the beginning, ‘Guys, we’re never going to see anybody get a bloody nose at the Mutiny Club. I don’t want to see the downside of drugs in the club. I want to see them outside of the club.'”

The downside of drugs in the world of “Hotel Cocaine” includes murder, shootouts, attempted kidnappings, and a car explosion that takes out a congressman in the penultimate Season 1 episode. But there are also moments of near camp, including Feuerstein trying to prop up a depressed, blocked Rick James in the Alice in Wonderland suite and Mutiny Club gal Friday Janice (a delightful Laura Gordon) showing a new girl how to mime snorting a line out of politeness. And the tonal mismatch did not go unnoticed.

“Not only was it a very fine line to walk, but I must say that Michael Wright, who’s the head of MGM+, a brilliant executive, was very concerned at the beginning,” Brancato said. “He was like, ‘Hey man, I’m nervous you’re going to tilt this thing into this comedic spectacle that may not suit the show very well.’ And I said, ‘Michael, look, we’re seeing [Burton] in the first episode or two entertaining guests like Hunter S. Thompson and Rick James. But he will get pulled into the center of the show, the drug world, and he will come out the other side realizing that every pleasure has a price.”

Helping mesh the two extremes is the overall aesthetic of the show, from the big-collared, loud-print shirts and tiny Speedos to the outrageous production design of the Hotel Mutiny itself.

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Since they would be shooting in the Dominican Republic, Brancato knew his Spanish wasn’t up to the task of interviewing the production team. So he gave executive producer and director Guillermo Navarro full power to hire the department heads, telling him, “‘I need you to go get the best of the best people.’ And that’s exactly what he did.”

With costumes by Adela Cortez (“Wrks herself to the bone,” Brancato said), production design by Raymundo Cabrera (“He built that set on a thin nickel”), and inositol playing the role of cocaine for the entire cast, it turned out to be the show’s period-setting theme song that took longest to crack.

Brancato and Swizz Beatz work together on “Godfather of Harlem,” so it felt natural to ask him to write a “Hotel Cocaine” theme song.

“Swizz is funny, he gets inspired by wherever he is,” Brancato said. “So I swear to you, I got back the [opening credits] animatic of the boats and all the Miami stuff, and the song was sung in Arabic. I said, ‘Hey, where have you been?’ He’s I am just leaving Saudi Arabia. I go, ‘OK. But are you gonna change the lyrics to English?’ He goes, ‘No. Those lyrics sum up everything you want to know about the grimness of the drug wars.'”

Luckily, Brancato had the idea to invite him to play ’70s DJ Kool Herc in the season finale. And once Swizz Beatz was on set, he changed his tune. Literally.

“He said to me, ‘Hey, thank God I came here, because now I totally understand the vibe of the show. I know what you’re going for.’ And he said, ‘I’ll have you a cut in 24 hours.'” A recorded repeat of that promise and 24 hours later, he delivered Brancato the track that now opens every episode.

The Season 1 finale of “Hotel Cocaine” will premiere on MGM+ August 4.