Not even the considerable writing, directing, and acting talents of Nicholas Pileggi (GoodFellas, Casino), Tim Hunter (Cold Case, Carnivàle), and Donnie Wahlberg and Jason Gedrick (Boomtown) can make Kings of South Beach seem altogether fresh. What Michael Mann didn’t tell us in Miami Vice about the vanishing line between undercover and gone native, Martin Scorsese would revisit at paranoid length in The Departed, in which no man could trust anyone, even himself. So this docudrama based on the gaudy rise and giddy fall of mob-connected Miami nightlife impresario Chris Paciello (called “Chris Troiano” here) telegraphs its most important punch too early on, and the rest is loud music, strobe lights, nose candy, and debauched dancing, while we await a triple-cross that never comes. Still, nobody does scuzzy better than Donnie W., Jason G.’s testosterone seizures are justly famous, and Nadine Velazquez is a concupiscent Slinky.

Kings of South Beach
A&E, Monday, March 12, 9 p.m.

Related:

• Archive: “Television”
• Articles by John Leonard
• Table of Contents: Mar 12, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!