The Descent of George Jung

Rating: 9/10 (11 November 2007)

Jung(Johnny Depp--is there any role he CAN'T play?)is basically a kid from working class Boston who,while away in college,discovers that selling drugs pays good. VERY good. And as he moves from selling dime bags of marijuana to larger amounts of the stuff,he discovers that cocaine sells to even richer clientèle,so he moves into that Emmatrade.Over the span of just over twenty years,George goes from being small-time dealer to major trafficker,and as he does,he moves up and back down the financial scale. Make no mistake about it,though,the movement of his soul is steadily only going down.
A somber,un-romanticized story of a life of crime told through first-person narration,this film,directed by Ted Demme off a screenplay by David McKenna(from a book by Bruce Porter),is told matter-of-fact,thus enhancing the element of unsettling reality(or,put another way,it gives off the all-too-subtle insinuation that if someone as ostensibly normal as this guy could end up being a morally decayed merchant of addiction and death,then maybe so could ANYONE.). The supporting cast is mostly transitory,as many friends,associates and acquaintances move through George's life,with the major exceptions being his parents:his hard-working,easy-going dad(Ray Liotta,touching),who loves his son dearly and is noticeably powerless in helping him,his mom(RAchel Griffiths),an easily hurt woman whose desire to see her financial/family situation improve is blunted by her shame in her son's avocation,his wife(Penelope Cruz),who is mostly only into him because of his money,his innocent daughter(Emma Roberts as a child,Jaime King as an adult) and the business associates(Paul Reubens--excellent,as the wiry,erratic hair-stylist who hooks Jung up initially--and Ethan Suplee,pre-"My Name is Earl"),who also end up deserting him at one point or another.
The appeal of this show may be kind of limited,since its portrayal of drug crime is much less about the "sex and violence" than it is about the general loss of soul and character,but to me,this would be(I'm guessing)much closer to the real breakdown as to how dealers end up being created:namely,namely as misguided businessmen who realize that they're dealing in something damning and destructive(if they ever realize it at all!). Probably more of a choice of viewers who are fans of any of the principals(mostly Depp,but also to lesser effect Liotta,Cruz,Reubens or Max Perlich,who plays one of Jung's friends from the old neighborhood),that seems like a shame,because this movie is a fine example of thoughtful,dark film-making.