Based on the Bruce Porter book, Blow is directed by the late Ted Demme (Beautiful Girls) and stars Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Jordi Molla, Ray Liotta and Paul Reubens. It is based on the life and drug-smuggling career of George Jung, who made approximately $100 million through cocaine trafficking. It's a well directed, well written and superbly acted biography that makes you gasp, laugh, and at times, cry.
The movie opens in Massachusetts, where we find a young George Jung. George idolizes his father (Ray Liotta), who is forced to file for bankruptcy. Vowing never to end up like his parents, grown-up George (Depp) moves to California with his best friend Tuna (Ethan Suplee) hoping for a better life. While there, the pair discover the profitability of selling Marijuana, and are eventually introduced to Derek Foreal (Reubens), the main dealer.
George works out a plan to sell Marijuana to students back in Massachusetts, using George's girlfriend Barbara, an airline stewardess, to deliver the drugs and return with the money. As the demand grows, George starts to buy his Marijuana directly from Mexico. Unfortunately, George is arrested in Chicago with 660 pounds of the drug, and is sentenced to 2 years in jail upon his release, but he skips bail to take care of Barbara, now his fiance, who is suffering from cancer.
While on the run, George visits his parents. His father, while a little uneasy, is happy to see Geroge. His mother, however, calls the police, and George is sent to prison in Connecticut for 26 months. While inside, he meets Diego Delgado (Molla), a man with connections to the Medellín cartel. Together, they form a plan to traffic cocaine into the United States when they have been released. With Diego's cartel friends, and George's connection in California, his old friend Foreal, they being shipping in millions of dollars worth of cocaine from Columbia, becoming 2 of history's most prolific drug traffickers.
From then on, the film follows our money-hungry protagonist as he is caught in webs of deceit, betrayal, domestic conflicts and heartbreak. It's a biopic of one of the criminal world's most interesting characters. All he wanted to do was live his own America dream, and found out that when you're on top of the world, the only way is down, and that getting everything you want comes at the ultimate price.
As usual, Depp gives an great performance, and brings Jung's larger-than-life dynamics to life. I often always found myself sympathising with him, because he's not mean or callous, he's just trying to live life his own way, it just so happens that the profession he chose is illegal. One of the final scenes in the film, where George records a farewell message to his father, is so well directed and beautifully acted that it's one of the few scene that I get chocked-up at every time I see it.
Since seeing the film, I have read the book it is based on, and to be honest, the movie takes a lot of liberties with the truth. Many events are either changed or omitted, some pretty significant events in George's life are altered, and I felt my self empathising with the real Jung much less than the film version, as he pushed his luck way too far, and just never learned his lesson. But the movie is a brilliant insight into Jung's life and business; the high and lows, the deals and the back-stabbings. It's one of my favourite Johnny Depp movies, and in my opinion, one of his most overlooked performances.
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