Pretty good drug movie

Rating: 9/10 (2 November 2002)

Blow is the story of drug smuggler George Jung, his rise and fall, his relationship with his parents (Ray Liotta and Rachel Griffiths) and the women in his life (Franka Potente and the gorgeous Penelope Cruz).
On the one hand, this is a great movie when it focuses on the entrepreneurial spirit of George Jung and his various buddies, with a great supporting role from Paul Reubens as Derek Foreal (but it won't rehabilitate him to making children's movies like Pee-wee's Playhouse anytime soon). In some ways this movie is the flip side of Miami Vice, which is nice to see.

We see Jung's rise from an entrepreneurial distributor of marijuana, to his rise in the cocaine world. All of this clicks along nicely, however, the later stages of the movie focus more on his self-obsession, culminating in the not so subtle plea from the real George Jung for his daughter to see him more often in prison. The women in his life seem to be one-dimensional b**tches (the love of his life dies on him, his mother turns him in and his wife flips and brings their daughter to see him in prison when the cash runs out), and you have to wonder how much of that is Jung himself instead.

It's also nice to see something about the people behind the news and in this case, the drug scene.
In all, a pretty nice movie, but I could have done without the heavy handed and depressing moralizing at the end.