Every high has a low.

Rating: 10/10 (28 April 2009)

Growing up as kid to an overworked struggling to make ends meat father (Ray Liotta), Jorge Jung, played by Johnny Depp, finds himself looking for an escape from his past by selling marijuana. The root of Jorge's problems comes from watching his father fall short of his mother's money expectations. When Jorge graduates high school he and his friend Tuna (Ethan Suplee) move to California. Caught up in the laid back lifestyle Jorge comes across his first addiction, making money. Jorge catches his first brake through a man named Derrick Foreal (Paul Reubens) who supplies the partners with the means to sell marijuana. With a little too much ambition Jorge is sent to jail only to start on the next chapter of his drug frenzy, cocaine.
With every high there is a low and Jorge becomes accustomed to this lifestyle with the addiction of money and drugs, success and failure. In the end Jorge understands his father's famous words from the beginning of the story, "money doesn't matter it may seem like it does but in the end it doesn't mean anything." Towards the end of the movie after Jorge has lost all the fancy cars and houses Jorge has the most important thing left, his daughter. Unfortunately due to Jorge's old ways he makes a promise to his daughter that he can't keep.
The theme, of the movie is finding what is important in life. Jorge doesn't realize what is important to him until the very end of the movie. Jorge states when he is getting busted, that getting busted didn't bother him, being sold out didn't bother him it was that he didn't keep his promise. We see a constant motif of Jorge going up and down in life. First we see Jorge smiling and enjoying the good life and then we see Jorge down in the dumps looking for a way to get back on top. The title says is all Jorge was constantly chasing the highs of life always trying to escape that painful feeling of "coming down." The director uses camera angles that relate to the theme in shots like the end when Jorge is getting busted. The camera is at even level with Jorge slowly panning in on his morbidly depressed face looking off into space. The exact opposite camera angle is seen when Jorge is happy; for instance when he and Diego are counting the money at the table the camera angle is below them showing how they are on top of the world.
We have all wanted to know how famous drug dealers got there start. Based on a true story the director Ted Demme takes us through the uncommon ground of dealing drugs. Scenes like that of dealing with Pablo Escobar under the hot Columbian sun make our heart pump. Overall it was fun to see Jorge start from the bottom and work towards the top. In some ways we want to be him, living on the edge, making a boat load of money and getting away with it. It's possible you might find yourself telling Jorge to stop selling drugs and enjoy the good life while you can.
In life there is no ever lasting high just a not so thrilling happy medium.