A sanitized, Hollywood-style adaptation that is ultimately a letdown

Rating: 5/10 (19 January 2007)

I watched this adaptation of Bruce Porter's novel "Blow" having read most of the book. As a film alone, it is passable. But as an adaptation of truly attention-getting material, it is a sorry failure. Based on the true-life of George Jung who created an empire in the United States by dealing cocaine, the film starts off on the wrong footing and continues to descend into a white-wash of the events of George Jung's life.
Director Ted Demme takes Jung's life and creates artificial sympathy for the character making the film a tragedy of circumstance rather than of choice. However, George Jung himself admitted that the only reason he chose to be a cocaine dealer was that times were slow and he needed the money. Demme also turns Jung's mother into an uncaring villain who turns her son into the cops and taunts him as he is led away, when in reality Jung really doesn't know who turned him in. The film also looks over the fact that George had a well-paying job when he decided to enter the world of drug trafficking. It is of no surprise that director Ted Demme sympathized with Jung considering Demme's own cocaine related death less than a year later.
What was advertised and initially appeared to be a truly engaging exploration of the world of cocaine dealing turned out to be a very typical Hollywood film about drug dealing. With music video cinematography and underwhelming performances by Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz and most of the remaining cast, Blow doesn't come close to expanding or improving upon countless other films exploring the same topic. It falls quickly into the Hollywood glamor trap and never ascends to anything more than typical.