More of a breeze that a gale

Rating: 6/10 (11 March 2002)

I enjoyed Blow - the acting was quite good and Depp was on form, although he's done much better. It looks great and the soundtrack is excellent if you like rock music.
However, it did feel like every other gangster/drug movie and was irritatingly similar to the far superior Goodfellas - The Depp voice-over was almost a carbon copy Henry Hill's. Likewise the soundtrack, although full of great songs, is just the same as so many others. The acting, although good, is never brilliant.
No single facet of Blow excels - it's enjoyable but somehow shallow. I would liked to have seen more of the negative physical effects of excessive cocaine use - there was only one small part of the movie in which this was emphasized. It was unrealistic and left the film feeling like a sanitized version of events, and that Jung was a hero. Whatever you feel about the drugs issue - it's difficult to refute that Jung brought his downfall upon himself, and yet he's portrayed as a victim of, rather than a participant in criminal activities.
Others watching the film alongside me enjoyed blow because of it's lightness - it's easy to follow and not overly violent, unlike many films from the genre.
Overall, it's no masterpiece but is still very good. Well worth a watch, just don't expect to be blown away.
========= As an afterthought, has anyone else noticed the extras on the DVD, specifically the 6 minute mini documentary about the causes and effects of addiction? Was this tacked on to ease a guilty conscience, as the film portrays drug use in an overly positive light? It seemed very out of place to me, and reminded me of a public information film!
If you want some real evidence of the long term effects of heavy cocaine usage, check out the interviews with Jung himself. Is it just me or is this man almost unintelligible? And when he could be understood, he talked a lot of meaningless tosh...