Stars: Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Franka Potente, Rachel Griffiths, Paul Reubens

Director: Ted Demme

Summary: The story of George Jung who was instrumental in the explosion of the US market for cocaine in the 1970s. Despite his wealth and power the true cost of his ways eventually catches up with him...

George Jung (Johnny Depp) doesn't want to live like his father (Ray Liotta)--always short of money and constantly berated by his mother (Rachel Griffiths). So he sets off for California to live on the beach, where he finds he can make a living selling drugs. Soon George's drug dealing business expands into shipping drugs across the country. Needing a bigger supply of drugs, he travels to Columbia and meets Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis). Before long, George becomes the biggest trafficker of cocaine in the United States. In BLOW, director Ted Demme and scriptwriters Nick Cassevetes and David McKenna chart George's strange course into a world of girls and sun, drugs and fun. It's all so easy until events change George's life forever.
Depp gives one of his best performances as George, instilling the character with a complicated mixture of emotions. For the supporting roles, Demme's eccentric casting includes German actress Franka Potente as George's girlfriend; Spanish actress Penelope Cruz as his wife; Australian actress Rachel Griffiths (who in real life is five years younger than Depp) as his withering mother; and Paul Reubens (in an excellent performance) as a hairdresser-cum-drug dealer.

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A briskly paced hybrid of Boogie Nightsand Goodfellas, Blowchronicles the three-decade rise and fall of George Jung (Johnny Depp), a normal American kid who makes a personal vow against poverty, builds a marijuana empire in the 1960s, multiplies his fortune with the Colombian Medellín cocaine cartel, and blows it all with a series of police busts culminating in one final, long-term jail sentence. "Your dad's a loser," says this absentee father to his estranged but beloved daughter, and he's right: Blowis the story of a nice guy who made wrong choices all his life, almost single-handedly created the American cocaine trade and got exactly what he deserved. Directed by Ted Demme, the film is vibrantly entertaining, painstakingly authentic... and utterly aimless in terms of overall purpose. We can't sympathise with Jung's meteoric rise to wealth and the wild life, and Demme isn't suggesting that we should idolise a drug dealer. So what, exactly, is the point of Blow? Simply, it seems, to present Jung's story as the epitome of the coke-driven glory days, and to suggest, ever so subtly, that Jung isn't such a bad guy, after all. Anyone curious about his lifestyle will find this film amazing, and there's plenty of humour mixed with the constant threat of violence and paranoid anxiety. Demme has also populated the film with a fantastic supporting cast (although Penelopé Cruz grows tiresome as Jung's hedonistic wife), and this is certainly a compelling look at the other side of Traffic. Still, one wishes that Blowhad a more viable reason for being: like a wild party, it leaves you with a hangover and a vague feeling of regret. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interview - George Jung, Documentaries, Audio Commentary, Outtakes, Deleted Scenes, Music Video, Optional Subtitle Track - Facts and Trivia, Trailer - 1. Original Theatrical, Production Diary, Filmographies
Year:	2001
Release Date:	November 19, 2001
Runtime:	122 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	E D V 9114
Keywords:	Blow, General, Drama
Genre:	Drama