Real Life, Catching Up

Rating: Null/10 (6 July 2003)

You have to feel for George Jung. Depp has portrayed this iconic (to some) individual with such completeness that despite all of his faults (and there are many) you still can't help but feel that he was misunderstood and ultimately unfortunate. He was a criminal, but by the time he'd worked out the real cost of his crimes, it was already too late.
There is truth in the old adage that there is two sides to every story and this is defintely the story told from Jung's point of view. Really beginning in Miami in the seventies, it tracks the career aspirations of George Jung particularly, but also his partners in crime.
Here was a man trying to make a stupendous living, seeing his enterprise completely differently from everyone else around him. As his father states when Jung comes to visit whilst on the run,'you would have been good at anything, George'. This certainly seems true and you feel that this would have been a very different story if he hadn't moved to Miami in the first place. He simply aspired to greatness in whatever grabbed his attention. He viewed dealing in drugs as a public service and didn't understand that what he was doing warranted the punishment he received.
There were many times thoughout the picture where you felt for George. His encounter with Diego Delgado's cocaine babysitters for one, or the first meeting with the 'Boss of it all', Pablo Escobar. These were dangerous times he was living in, but he felt the rewards were worth the risks, at the time.
After the birth of his daughter, his view begins to change. Everything goes according to plot. The rise and rise followed, inevitably, by the fall and fall. He loses all of his wealth as his funds are appropriated by the Bolivian government. This is at the time of his life where decided to quit the business and just be a father to his daughter. This does not go down well with his wife, played by Cruz.
You feel that Jung was, is, and always would be a chancer. He survived from beginning to end having light bulb flashes of inspiration and acting upon them. Often these flashes would cost him dearly, but he continued to live by them, no matter how often they appeared to get him in extremely hot water.
There was no real organisation to him, aside from a couple of pilots, a couple of planes, shipping this cargo to where it needed to be. Considering the eventual size of his operation, he handled it in what would seem a very slaphanded and sloppy way, as he had always done. He excelled at being a beach front dealer, working for change, but his transition to drug lord appeared to be over his head. He was in a very different league and this showed all too often.
The theory of 'honour amongst thieves' is lacking in entirety and makes for an interesting aside to the story of Jung himself and creates a sense of reality and luck in the picture. Maybe George was too trusting. Even his own Mother turned him in to the police when he came to visit.
This suggests that the man who made millions was somewhat easy to deceive and stretches the credibility of an individual who needs to be more wily than that in order to maintain the position he alone created. Mostly amiable, Depp's character must be walking around wondering what hit him as so little of his success appears to be down to planning. He almost falls over his opportunities, unprepared.
This is why he spent so much time in prison. This man practically introduced cocaine the the United States, a lofty claim indeed, coming from a man who seems merely to have 'lucked' into it.
As I said, you have to feel for the man himself. He is portrayed as a genuinely good person under all of this dangerous and sordid activity. He simply wanted to make alot of money and was none too bothered about how he achieved it (except under certain circumstances). He stood up for his friends, risking his life at least once for Diego. He was betrayed by those same friends, but in the most part, was big enough to forgive them for their sins against him.
He does realise that at the end of it all, that his daughter is more important to him than anything else. He only fully appreciates this when he is prison (not for the first time) and his daughter refuses to visit him, after breaking his promises once too often. 'I thought you couldn't live without your heart'.
A sad and cautionary tale for anyone who doesn't appreciate the finer things in life. For those prepared to risk everything for the sake of the mighty dollar. The movie screams 'you should know better' at you. Unfortunately George didn't and although you identify with his feelings at the end of the movie (if nowhere else), you stop several times throughout the film, for example when his daughter is being carried away into care, and think that even with the promise of all the wonderful things he has experienced, you would not be in the same boat as him, no matter what the benefit to you. A lesson in real life, by someone who has just learnt, though late, what it is really all about.