BlowFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blow is a 2001 drama/biopic film about the American cocaine smuggler George Jung, directed by Ted Demme. David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes adapted Bruce Porter's 1993 book Blow: How a Small Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All for the screenplay. It is based on the real life stories of George Jung, Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder, and the Medellín Cartel. The film's title comes from a slang term for cocaine.
Plot:
The film opens to a young George and his parents Fred (Ray Liotta) and Ermine (Rachel Griffiths). The boy's father supports his family in Weymouth, Massachusetts by running a small plumbing company. His mother is constantly complaining that the family has no money and badgers her husband, asking him what they are going to do. Finally, despite Fred's relentless efforts to keep the family afloat, they eventually have to file for bankruptcy and lose everything. The boy decides then that he will not let the same fate befall him.
A grown-up George (Johnny Depp) moves to Southern California with his friend "Tuna" (Ethan Suplee) and they get a beachside apartment and make friends with all the locals. They don't want to get real jobs so Tuna comes up with the idea of selling marijuana. George's new girlfriend, Barbara Buckley (Franka Potente) sets them on the path to do just that by introducing them to her friend/entrepreneur Derek Foreal (Paul Reubens), who is the main dealer in the area. With Derek's help, George and Tuna make a lot of money selling to all the people in the area. Their other friend, Kevin Dulli (Max Perlich) who is a college student back in Boston visits them while on vacation. He begins to tell George and Tuna about the shortage of quality pot and the enormous demand given all the colleges in that area. With the help of Barbara, an airline stewardess, they start bringing the drugs to Boston.
The demand continues to grow beyond what Barbara can carry in her suitcases twice a week to Boston. They decide to start buying the drugs directly from Mexico. They meet a few Mexican druglords and set up a system for importing the drugs via small airplanes. Things are going well, and they buy a mansion in Acapulco. The entire group relishes in the luxurious lifestyle.
George brings his now fiancee, Barbara, to meet his parents. While Fred and Ermine are bickering with each other over the manner in which George acquired the wealth to buy Barbara such a beautiful ring, Barbara gets a nosebleed and has to leave. George then proceeds on to Chicago to do business, but is caught trying to import 660 pounds of marijuana. He makes an amusing statement to the judge in an attempt to convince her that he didn't commit any real crime, but she is not amused and he is sentenced to two years. Barbara tells him she can't wait that long since she is dying of cancer. George skips bail to care for her but she eventually dies. After her death, the group breaks apart.
While hiding from the authorities George visits his parents back in Massachusetts. Both reveal that they know exactly what is going on with George's life and are less than pleased. He is having a heart to heart with his father when suddenly the police show up and arrest him. His mother has turned him in, stating that he needs to straighten his life out, which disgusts his father.
George is now sentenced to 3 years in a Federal prison. His cellmate is Diego Delgado (Jordi Molla) who is involved in the cocaine trade in Colombia. He convinces George to change from pot to cocaine and when he gets out of prison, he violates parole and heads down to Colombia to meet up with Diego. They meet with Cesar Rosa, who represents Pablo Escobar, and negotiate the terms for smuggling 15 kilograms for "good faith". George isn't satisfied with the way negotiations are going because he feels that they are having to work too hard for too little money. George then goes to a hotel to pick up 50 kilos of cocaine from Escobar's men on Diego's behalf. George is accosted and told to tell Diego that he must pay them by that Friday. However, Diego quickly gets arrested and jailed in Colombia, leaving George to find a way to sell the drugs and get the money in time. He reconnects with Derek in California, and the two successfully sell all of it in 36 hours, amassing a $1 million + profit. George is then whisked off to Colombia, where he finally meets Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis).
Soon, Pablo agrees to go into business with George and Diego. With the help of main middleman Derek, the pair becomes Pablo's #1 importer. George narrates that at one point, 85% of the cocaine going into the US came through him. He then sets up an account with a bank in Panama where he hides all his wealth.
George is living higher on the hog than ever and even marries a Colombian beauty named Mirtha (Penélope Cruz). He brings his parents to his southern California mansion. His mother's infatuation with money and nice things seems to override her previous concerns about his career choice. It's during this tour of the household that his father indicates that he's aware of how George made his fortune, but he'll look the other way since his son has become successful at it and is doing what makes him happy. His father says that even if he wanted to change things, he knows he wouldn't be able to.
George eventually meets up with Diego in order to finish a drug deal at a motel. While at the motel, Diego starts a fight with George concerning the identity of his "California Connection", Derek. During the course of the fight, the drug buyers are watching them and asking what is wrong. While George tries to calm them, Diego's erratic behavior makes them believe something is wrong and they shoot George in the shoulder. At this point, George calms the situation by saying everything is okay and he's not hurt. George and Diego finish the deal at which time George finally reveals his connection. Diego, having become increasingly paranoid and edgy from his cocaine addiction, then double crosses him and deals directly with Derek, keeping George out of the loop.
When George discovers that he has been cut out of the business, he pays a visit to Diego at Norman's Cay, where he has set up his own business. After a tense dispute in which Diego insists that he is solely entitled to everything that he and George built, Diego has his men brutally beat George. Upon returning home to a very pregnant Mirtha, George decides to quit the business and live off of the $60 million he earned. However, George's cocaine addiction comes to a head when he goes into cardiac arrest in the hospital, seconds after daughter Kristina is born.
Encouraged by his doctor, George completely gives up cocaine and happily commits himself to the duties of sobreity and fatherhood. A montage of Kristina's birthday parties indicate that George is thoroughly enjoying his opportunities to bond with his daughter just as he did with his own father. Mirtha, on the other hand, appears increasingly restless and bored with this domesticated lifestyle. After 5 years of laying low and avoiding the authorities, Mirtha decides that she needs to have some fun and throws George a birthday party, inviting many of his old drug friends. Erich is there and tells George that Diego eventually double crossed him and kept him out of the loop too. They happily reconcile. Mirtha, having never been able to break the coke habit, breaks out a huge dish of cocaine and the waiters eventually reveal themselves as FBI and DEA agents and bust everyone. George cuts a deal, takes the rap, and posts bail in return for his wife and daughter to remain free. In the same way he did when he was busted in Mexico, he becomes a fugitive on the run.
He visits his parents one last time to tell them that he would be disappearing for a while. He finds that his mother is furious over what her son has gotten himself into and refuses to acknowledge him when he arrives. He leaves after speaking with his aging and ailing father only briefly. In a scene eliminated from the final cut, George returns to his mansion only to discover that the millions in cash and all his luxury cars and valuables have been seized by the DEA and FBI. Fearing that the family will no longer have anything to live on, he travels to Panama City to withdraw his savings from his hidden account. He arrives only to discover that the Panamanian government had long since nationalized the banks and re-appropriated all his money. This discovery leads to a tense battle between Mirtha and George about their dire financial situation in front of their daughter, just like his mother did with his father 30 years earlier. He reassures Kristina that things will be okay and that the family will never be separated. Eventually, during an extremely heated argument with Mirtha while driving on the highway, George swerves the car nearly causing an accident, and is pulled over. Mirtha goes into a rage and screams that George is hiding a kilo of cocaine in his trunk even as they speak. It is discovered, and George is sent to prison--this time for a three-year term.
During a visit with his Mirtha at the end of his prison term, George finds out that she is divorcing him, will get custody of Kristina, and that she will be seeking child support payments. Upon his release, he dedicates himself to rebuilding his relationship with a very angry Kristina, and slowly starts doing so by walking her to and from school. She tells him that her one dream is to go to California. One day, after walking Kristina home, he finds Mirtha waiting outside. The two seem to be at ease with each other and George brings up the fact that he would like to have custody of their daughter. Mirtha, however, points out that George has yet to make any child support payments and that if he did, she would think about it.
Having lost all of his money, George makes a few calls and sets up one last big score. He tells his daughter to wait for him after school in a few days and he will take her to California. She doubts him at first and it's only after she asks him to swear on her life that she believes him. Mr. Jung meets with his longtime friend from Boston to realize that he'll be doing his last deal with him. Grade A 100% pure cocaine was flown into Florida and delivered to a home where George and his buddies triumph in what they have done. As George leaves the table and uses the restroom the audience is awed to realize it was a setup. A setup by one of his longtime friends, the DEA and the FBI. He currently faces a 60-year prison sentence. Meanwhile, Kristina waits for her dad to arrive and take her to California.
In prison, George reflects on his life and how he let his daughter down. While tending to the prison garden, a guard calls him over to see a visitor. There standing in front of him is his now grown up, very beautiful daughter (Jaime King). They talk a little and then have a long tearful hug. Suddenly the guard calls again, indicating that George is just imagining this. The film ends as the guard walks George, now a crazy old man, out of the garden. Two statements appear on the screen: that George is sentenced to Otisville Correctional Facility until 2015; and that his daughter has never visited her father. The screen fades to black, features a photo of the real George Jung, and the credits roll.
Cast:
* Johnny Depp as George Jung
* Jordi Mollà as Diego Delgado
* Penélope Cruz as Mirtha Jung
* Ray Liotta as Fred Jung
* Paul Reubens as Derek Foreal
* Franka Potente as Barbara Buckley
* Rachel Griffiths as Ermine Jung
* Ethan Suplee as Tuna
* Cliff Curtis as Pablo Escobar
* Miguel Sandoval as Augusto Oliveras
* Kevin Gage as Leon Minghella
* Max Perlich as Kevin Dulli
* Jesse James as Young George
* Miguel Pérez as Alessandro
* Dan Ferro as Cesar Toban
* Tony Amendola as Sanchez
* Bob Goldthwait as Mr. T
* Michael Tucci as Dr. Bay
* Monet Mazur as Maria
* Emma Roberts as Kristina Jung
Reception:
Blow was a minor box office success. With a budget of roughly $53 million, it managed to rake in just under $53 million domestically, but raised just over $30 million internationally for a grand worldwide total of $83,282,296. It gained a greater fan base when released on DVD in late 2001.
Reviews for Blow were decidedly mixed. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film has received a rating of 55%, which is rotten]. Many critics were quick to compare Blow to previous films such as Scarface, Goodfellas, and Boogie Nights, which contained similar plot lines and took place in approximately the same time period (i.e. late '70s, early '80s). Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film a glowing review, praising the directing of Ted Demme, the bold performance by Johnny Depp, and the screenplay that tells a story without placing any sort of moral judgment on Jung.
Roger Ebert noted the film for its good acting and direction as well, but questioned the value about making Jung the subject of this film: "That's the thing about George [Jung]. He thinks it's all about him. His life, his story, his success, his fortune, his lost fortune, his good luck, his bad luck. Actually, all he did was operate a toll gate between suppliers and addicts. You wonder, but you never find out, if the reality of those destroyed lives ever occurred to him."
Blow [Blu-ray]From New Line Home Video
Average customer review:
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #626 in DVD
- Released on: 2008-09-23
- Rating: R (Restricted)
- Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
- Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Widescreen
- Original language: English
- Number of discs: 1
- Running time: 123 minutes
Amazon.com
A briskly paced hybrid of Boogie Nights and Goodfellas, Blow chronicles 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 '60s, 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: Blow is 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. As directed by Ted Demme, the film is vibrantly entertaining, painstakingly authentic... and utterly aimless in terms of overall purpose.
We can't sympathize with Jung's meteoric rise to wealth and the wild life, and Demme isn't suggesting that we should idolize 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 humor mixed with the constant threat of violence and paranoid anxiety. Demme has also populated the film with a fantastic supporting cast (although Penélope 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 Blow had a more viable reason for being; like a wild party, it leaves you with a hangover and a vague feeling of regret. --Jeff Shannon
From The New Yorker
This story of the real-life cocaine dealer George Jung-a Massachusetts man who sold the Medellín cartel's dope to mainstream America in the seventies-would seem to offer a perfect star vehicle for Johnny Depp, but the unconvincing narrative doesn't allow him to shape a performance. The director, Ted Demme, and the screenwriters, David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes, tell the story of George's rise as a series of semi-comic riffs on his unwittingness-how casually he operated, how oblivious he was to risk and treachery on all sides. Apart from one scary episode with Pablo Escobar, the scenes are flimsily staged-thin and underdone. Now and then Demme throws in the towel and resorts to a rapid montage of shots meant to convey the giddy drug life, but this isn't directing, and it isn't evocation, either; it's more like flinging a loosely pasted scrapbook onto the floor and asking the audience to sort it out. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker
Customer Reviews
worth watching once, I suppose
Drug movies tend to bore me, and this one was no exception. I wasn't too into the narrative style, and Penelope Cruz put forth one of her worst performance to date, in my book, but let me clarify by saying I adore Penelope. Johnny Depp was good for the role, but someone else might have been able to bring more to the character.
not closed captioned
I am a deaf person and I count on the Closed Captioning and subtitles to be able to enjoy a movie.
Even though Blow is listed as being Closed Captioned, this copy is not.
A waste of my time and money.
What are you lokking at Mrs.Crazy,your son's no prize!
Based on a true story for those of you who have lived on the moon, and it puts you on an emotional roller coaster of cocaine,money,greed,ect. I can't say too much and give spoil it for the few ppl who missed watching it but it just shows how important our children are & how we need to be careful what we say & do. This one of my Favorite movies & I watch it allot,it's in my kitchen dvd so I watch while I cook,Dinner & I just love Jonny Depp & Ray Liotta.
