Doesn't blow one bit

Rating: Null/10 (16 December 2009)

George Jung is the son of a struggling small business owner. Seeing his family struggle to make ends meet and failing, George vows never to share a similar fate. Moving to California, he starts his own pot pushing operation in which he finds both success and imprisonment. In prison, he meets a cellmate who introduces him into a partnership to the lucrative new market in cocaine. Upon release, George Jung quickly becomes instrumental in establishing the exploding US market for cocaine in which he claimed that he handled about 85% of the supply in the 1970's. However, for all the fabulous wealth and power he gained, the true costs of his dangerously treacherous occupation catch up with him in ways from which he would never recover... Blow is a very interesting biography that shows George Jung as a complex individual and in some ways, a victim of the American dream. One can also argue, that the poverty-stricken environment he grew up in, may have shaped George's mentality and ideology and pushed him, even if not directly, to dealing drugs. After all, at the time, dealing drugs was nothing more then an easy way to make money, and that was George's goal, so he wouldn't have to go trough , again, what he went trough in his childhood. The story has a very fast pace and the self-narration is great, and an element that I always enjoy in films. The direction is quite stylish and Depp, who plays the lead character, George Jung, delivers a great performance and showed, as always, bucket-loads of charisma. He plays this role in a way that everyone will sympathize with the character despite him being involved in illegal affairs. Definitely, one of the actor's best performances. Ray Liotta, who plays George's father was also very good, and it's heartbreaking to see the character suffering with his son's imprisonment, because despite not agreeing with what George was doing, he truly loved him and always supported him. Penelope Cruz who plays George's second wife was a bit over the top for my taste but nothing that ruins the film. The only negative aspect of Blow, is the fact that the story spans three decades and some of the characters, like George's parents for instance, seem to age very little. I know this is a technicality but it's something that should have been paid more attention to. Overall, Blow is a fine example of story-telling and film-making.
8/10