an uninteresting film about an uninteresting person

Rating: Null/10 (5 April 2002)

This movie is an attempt to paint a sympathetic picture of an utterly useless human being. It's the story of the rise and fall of George Jung, the biggest cocaine dealer in the country at one time. The director makes a laughable attempt at making us feel bad for this blood sucking parasite on society by showing how the people he surrounded himself with did him wrong. He actually tries to make this drug dealing bum who never at any point in his life attempted to work for a living look like a victim because his drug dealing associates back stabbed him. And all of this is despite being raised by a decent family. It's obvious that by informing us at the end of the film that his daughter has not visited him yet in prison, that the director feels this just isn't right. It's obviously supposed to be a sad ending. But anyone with any morals at all will feel a sense of justice and will come away feeling like George Jung got exactly what he deserved, lost exactly what he deserved, and is exactly where he belongs! I don't think I have ever seen a worse case of a film attempting to make a victim out of a perpetrator. One can only believe that the director must have dealt drugs at one time to feel so sympathetic toward such a worthless excuse for a life. The only thing that makes this film even bearable is Johnny Depp's permomance as George Jung and Ray Liotta's as his father. The rest of the cast might just as well have not been there.