BLOW
While "Blow" isn’t exactly the drug epic, it’s cracked (no pun intended) up to be, it is one helluva’ ride through the life of George Jung, a gifted screw up who can’t see life beyond his next big score. Why gifted? According to the all press releases published to hype the movie he started a distribution network that supplied over eighty percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States in the eighties. It’s a feat that could have made him in some other time - like today - an equally successful distributor of some dot.com commodity. Why screw up? Because he never grew up, at least within the context of this movie. Director Ted Demme ("The Ref") and writers Nick Cassavetes and Dick McKenna make George out to be a party animal who never knew when to call it a day. The high life of cocaine riches is treated as a runaway merry go round with the brass ring of sanity always out of reach. You’re average drug dealer has never been portrayed as such a likable guy as the filmmakers and Johnny Deep make George Jung out to be. He’s fun to be with. Everything he does is an adventure, from his first big pot score in Mexico in a jaunty single engine prop plane to his final bust. Jung has one fatal flaw, one you can’t afford in any business where the competition can kill you. George trusted everyone - unconditionally. He never looked behind his back.
George Jung is not someone you want your kids to emulate, no matter how funny - no matter how bright - or no matter how adventurous he might be. Yet, seeing "Blow" does make you wonder how - if you were in his shoes - you would have done it differently and not gotten caught. Putting you in this mindset is the strength of the movie. Director Ted Demme establishes George Jung’s world and dares you to identify with him without apology or pity. Before you realize it, you’re swept up into the gale force of Johnny Depp’s performance. He takes you with him every step of George Jung’s misbegotten way from East Coast hippie to California beach bum and international smuggler to jail bird. In jail, he learns all there is to learn about coke when he hooks up with Diego Delgado, a small time dope dealer with a dream. With Jung’s bravado, friends in the states and Delgado’s connections in Colombia, it’s not long before the dream becomes reality with untold wealth. Along with success comes jealousy and betrayal. Everyone wants what the other guy has but in the end everyone wants what money can’t buy -freedom from prosecution.
There are some terrific performances in the smaller but pivotal roles and a few that make "Blow" less than perfect. Ray Liotta is the father who could never turn his back on his son, while Rachel Griffiths ("Muriel’s Wedding"), with an accent that sounds more Brooklyn than Boston, is the mother who would rather see her son in jail than shame her by his presence. Jordi Molla is Delgado, the Colombian friend who goes from friend to foe when he feels his dream has been usurped by Jung. Paul Rubens (Pee Wee Herman) gets a chance to show his acting chops as Derek Foreal, the first man to create a hair salon for men and the first link in George Jung’s distribution scheme. Penelope Cruz is Mirtha, the prize catch who gives George his only connection to the real world, a daughter. Cruz, not always convincingly, goes from a cocaine cuddled prize of a drug lord to destitute wife who uses her daughter to bait George and squeeze him out of his last nickel. The cast is rounded out by Franka Potente as George’s first love and first courier with Max Perlich and Ethan Suplee as his childhood buddies and fellow conspirators.
I must confess, I have a love-hate relationship with "Blow" that is comparable to my feelings for "The People vs Larry Flynt." In movie terms, Jung and Flynt are the proverbial outlaws that have been the staple of moving pictures ever since Edwin S. Porter made "The Great Train Robbery" in 1903. While one might not aspire to be like the real life Jung or Flynt, you can’t help but admire the sheer chutzpah of their cinematic equivalents, thanks in no small part to the major talent on both sides of the camera. Like "The People vs Larry Flynt," "Blow" is a first rate character study with a first rate performance by Johnny Depp - his best since "Donny Brasco." It is also Ted Demme’s most stylish movie to date.
Copyright 2001
Some other movies with about the drug life.
"Requiem for a Dream" (2000) - The nightmarish hallucinatory world of drug addiction is brilliantly realized by filmmaker Darren Aronofsky through the eyes of three addicts on a downward spiral of total emotional, physical and psychological degradation and a mother obsessed with diet pills and a TV game show. Aronofsky uses every camera and digital trick in the book to put the audience inside the heads of his characters with a frightening degree of success. Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly play the pair of doomed lovers, while Marlon Wayans delivers a performance that transcends his comic roots. Ellen Burstyn is equally brilliant as the mother driven to madness. This movie should be seen by every high school kid in harm’s way, albeit, under adult supervision. It is every bit as powerful as the documentary "Scared Straight" that gives troubled teens a taste of prison life.
"Superfly" (1972) - Dir. Gordon Parks Jr. The song "Freddie’s Dead" by Curtis Mayfield delivers the message against drugs while the movie doesn’t. Ron O’Neal is the Harlem Drug dealer out to make his last big score before going straight. This is one of the most successful films to come out of the Blaxploitation era thanks to credible performances and its kinetic pacing.
"Monkey on My Back" (1957) - Dir. Andre de Toth. Cameron Mitchell gives a heart wrenching performance as real life prize fighter and war hero Barney Ross whose drug addiction started with his treatment for malaria.
"Man With the Golden Arm" (1955) - Dir. Otto Preminger. Mild by comparison today’s films, a strong Oscar nominated performance by Frank Sinatra as an addicted musician trying to kick the habit and a jazz score by Elmer Bernstein are the two memorable elements of this one. This is one of several films Preminger made during the fifties that tried to push the envelope with themes and language that were frowned upon by the censors.
Two recommendations for the message in the image
"High and Low" (1963) (Japanese with Eng. subtitles) - Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Toshiro Mifune is a wealthy businessman who decides to pay a ransom for his chauffeur’s son who was mistaken for his own. The second half of the movie has an amazingly frightening drug den scene that can still send shivers down the spine. The ‘High’ refers to the privileged life of wealth while the ‘Low’ is the bottom rung of Japanese society where the criminal underworld dwells.
"Jungle Fever" (1991) - Written & directed by Spike Lee. There is a crack house scene that is every bit as powerful and frightening as the drug den in Kuroawa’s "High and Low." The movie is built around an interracial affair between Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra with Samuel L. Jackson as the crack addicted brother whose fate dominates the last half of the movie. With Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee and John Turturro among others.