Depp Knocks It Out Of The Park

Rating: 8/10 (3 March 2018)

Continuing my plan to watch every Johnny Depp movie in order, I come to Blow.
As I said in the Fear & Loathing review, I don't take drugs for fun, never have, never will!! So that movie went over my head and I didn't enjoy it at all. Blow, about the rise and fall of George Jung, is a different matter.
I don't like movies that portray some very nasty criminals as heroes!! They just don't appeal to me, Blow should be the same, but for some reason, it isn't!! Ignoring how many lives and families he ruined by importing all that cocaine, George is not a bad guy!! He never actually planned to become a drug dealer, he sort of stumbles into it, from selling joints on the beach (to avoid getting a real job) to being Pablo Escobar's trusted gringo distributor, via a stint in jail (thanks to his mother, who hoped it would help him sort his life out!!) where he says "I went in with a bachelor's of marijuana and came out with a doctorate in cocaine." It's interesting every time he says something was "perfect" it all comes crashing down!! And the last half of the movie is full of backstabbing, beatings and betrayals. But he is a scumbag who was responsible for eighty-five percent of the cocaine traffic in America, so don't feel too sorry for him.
I'm not sure how much of my enjoyment comes down to Depp and his performance. In an array of wigs and the fashion crimes of 3 eras, he knocks it out of the park. When he is in this type of form, there are not many actors who I'd rather watch. It's telling of Depp's ability that I feel some sympathy for him, as he sits at a tape recorder, leaving a message for his Dad. Speaking of his Dad, Ray Liotta is superb, with a bit more screen time, he could have stolen the movie. As for Penelope Cruz, she was so good in this movie, I actually hated her for ages after seeing it!! Every time I heard her name, all I could hear was "Let's f**king party mother f**kers!!" and recalled the drug-fuelled hissy fit in the car.
Blow has a similar feel to Goodfellas and Boogie Nights, it's very glossy, stylish has a great soundtrack, but it takes a considerably light view of illegal pleasures, in fact during its first sixty minutes, it celebrates it.
Like Boogie Nights and Goodfellas, Blow was not a smash hit at the box office, it did gross more than both of them though, nabbing $52 million at the domestic box office to end 2001 as the 47th highest grossing movie of the year. Although it was not celebrated at the Oscars like the other two. In fact, it was nominated for Razzies.
Interestingly, Blow director Ted Demme died less than a year later. A postmortem toxicology test showed cocaine in his system.