Flat.

Rating: 4/10 (25 April 2001)

Johnny Depp is George Jung, a man we are told at the begging of the film narrating his own story, is the man who was the sole contributor of cocaine to America during the late 70's early 80's (or at least 85% of it as he claims). In the end though, the only thing I could think of about this statement on which this movie basis it's entire story on was so what'. Problem is other than that, and a weak lead trying to carry the film, this movie I felt was pretty boring, uninteresting, and uneven.
Johnny Depp is an actor I find who can't seem to act well when needed. It seems every emotion his character has to play, fear, anger, hate, jealousy, sadness, love, all comes out in the end as a blank less stare and a wooden face. Instead of seeing the real George Jung as a man who just wanted to have a normal life but didn't know how to do anything else (but smuggle drugs), we are just treated to Depp not even aging well but just going through several decades with a bad haircut.
Other characters enter his life, but we never get to know them. Some seem more of a distraction (like making his first love die of cancer), or they end up disappearing through half the film (like George's gay hairdressing contact to Hollywood played by Paul Reubens of Pee-Wee Herman fame). Simply Jung goes and deals drugs, then he tries more, gets caught, tries again, gets caught, friends come, friends go. We all know from the beginning of the film that it won't work for George in the end, but the wait to get there is a romp through many uninteresting scenes, and characters which just didn't hold my interest.
The only time the movie seems successful is the interaction George Jung has with his Mother and Father which are played greatly by Ray Liota and Rachel Griffiths, but they only amount to small parts in the film.
In the end they throw on a soundtrack reminiscent of the era, and try to glitz up a couple shots, but the movie just doesn't have enough interesting characters, memorable scenes or dialogue, and goes on for far to long. There have been better films on the subject matter which are more interesting, have memorable characters and scenes such as GoodFellas, and Scarface and perhaps that's the problem. The good films on upcoming dealers/hustlers and their rise to the top and hard fall, have already been done.
Unfortunately I can't recommend it.
Rating 4 out of 10.