To hell with Goodfellas

Rating: Null/10 (8 April 2001)

I waited weeks for Scarface and Goodfellas to come back to Hollywood video so I could see these fabled tales of drug men ascending as heros before their downward descent into maddness and both times I was so sadly depressed, I gave up all hope for any movie lugging around this difficult script. I was even disappointed in Johnny Depp for taking the role, because I knew there was no way this movie was going to pull out anything. I sat down pulled out the jelly beans and prepared for the worst. As soon as I got through the credits and oriented myself to Depp with blond hair and realized that was him smacking guys on the ass, I knew I had found my movie. Where all other movies of the genre have failed, "Blow" amazed me. The movie was Johnny Depp and if you have any other expectations that there is going to be a worthwhile performance from anyone but him you will be disappointed. The movie is about George Jung, not Derek Foreal, or George's mother or Penelope Cruz. Therefore the other characters prove pretty close to flat. Ray Liotta as Jung's father, has redeemed himself from the warm as wood role he held in Goodfellas. Maybe none of us are really seeing this for what it is. Maybe this is just the ninties spin on the whole idea, but it took Johnny Deep and all the trappings of the ninties to make it all clear for me, because there was not one second of Scarface or Goodfellas that touched me in the least.