“Sweetie, did Daddy ever tell you that he was the first man to bring cocaine to America in the 1970s? I suppose there’s time for one more story.”
Not many people know George Jung’s story. Ted Demme’s film Blow is based on his fascinating yet virtually unknown life. Johnny Depp plays Jung, the man who began as a small-time pot dealer and ended up as a multi-million dollar middleman between the United States and Columbia’s Pablo Escobar. As Jung
boasts in the film, if you did cocaine in the States anytime in the 1980s,
chances are it was from him.
The film starts out fast-paced and exciting. It’s a party: music, good-looking people, drugs, booze… The camera is doing just as much swinging as Jung and his friends.
There are some of the ingredients of a good art-house film present – particularly when Jung is in jail talking to his bunkmate, Diego. Images of the two men slowly fade in and out of each other during the scene. It’s almost
ironic because it is a serene and beautiful look at two criminals.
The audience is enraptured as his youth goes by in a lifestyle that we imagine, but will never live. As he meets his lady loves, first Barbara (Run Lola Run’s Franka Potente) and then Mirtha (Penelope Cruz), we feel the excitement and danger of his life, first as a struggling drug dealer and then as a friend to leaders of central American drug cartels.
There are a number of memorable scenes scattered throughout the first half of the film. Namely, Jung’s friends getting high on “the best shit” they’ve ever
tried and asking six-year-old Mexican girls, “Where – we – find – Ma – ri- juana?”
A word to all guys who wish to get an eyeful of Depp’s costar, Cruz: she only shows up in the second hour of the film. Tiding you over is Potente who plays the fun, innocent girl who isn’t around to see the fall of her love. These two women represent the two stages of Jung’s life: innocence, ambition and youth versus a criminal record, blind comfort, and middle age.
Good old PeeWee Herman doesn’t disappoint. Paul Reubens plays Derek Foreal (great name) a friend of Jung’s who helps out in the drug trafficking. He’s a
fun yet serious wise fool in the film: a character that comes across as animated yet “for real.”
And with time, Jung becomes a middle-aged man with a beer gut, a pot… no pun intended.
The film develops one, too. It slows down tremendously and becomes bloated with scenes of a married man with a kid who was once so… unmarried and childless.
While the film still keeps our attention in these years, it slowly burns out until the final few scenes: all powerful images of everything Jung has lost because of his reckless freedom.
The best way to sum up Blow is that it’s fast and exciting until it isn’t anymore. Whether that’s a matter of proper pacing or lack of it will be left for audiences to decide.
Not many people know George Jung’s story. Ted Demme’s film Blow is based on his fascinating yet virtually unknown life. Johnny Depp plays Jung, the man who began as a small-time pot dealer and ended up as a multi-million dollar middleman between the United States and Columbia’s Pablo Escobar. As Jung
boasts in the film, if you did cocaine in the States anytime in the 1980s,
chances are it was from him.
The film starts out fast-paced and exciting. It’s a party: music, good-looking people, drugs, booze… The camera is doing just as much swinging as Jung and his friends.
There are some of the ingredients of a good art-house film present – particularly when Jung is in jail talking to his bunkmate, Diego. Images of the two men slowly fade in and out of each other during the scene. It’s almost
ironic because it is a serene and beautiful look at two criminals.
The audience is enraptured as his youth goes by in a lifestyle that we imagine, but will never live. As he meets his lady loves, first Barbara (Run Lola Run’s Franka Potente) and then Mirtha (Penelope Cruz), we feel the excitement and danger of his life, first as a struggling drug dealer and then as a friend to leaders of central American drug cartels.
There are a number of memorable scenes scattered throughout the first half of the film. Namely, Jung’s friends getting high on “the best shit” they’ve ever
tried and asking six-year-old Mexican girls, “Where – we – find – Ma – ri- juana?”
A word to all guys who wish to get an eyeful of Depp’s costar, Cruz: she only shows up in the second hour of the film. Tiding you over is Potente who plays the fun, innocent girl who isn’t around to see the fall of her love. These two women represent the two stages of Jung’s life: innocence, ambition and youth versus a criminal record, blind comfort, and middle age.
Good old PeeWee Herman doesn’t disappoint. Paul Reubens plays Derek Foreal (great name) a friend of Jung’s who helps out in the drug trafficking. He’s a
fun yet serious wise fool in the film: a character that comes across as animated yet “for real.”
And with time, Jung becomes a middle-aged man with a beer gut, a pot… no pun intended.
The film develops one, too. It slows down tremendously and becomes bloated with scenes of a married man with a kid who was once so… unmarried and childless.
While the film still keeps our attention in these years, it slowly burns out until the final few scenes: all powerful images of everything Jung has lost because of his reckless freedom.
The best way to sum up Blow is that it’s fast and exciting until it isn’t anymore. Whether that’s a matter of proper pacing or lack of it will be left for audiences to decide.
Blow opens in theatres on April 6. See our ad on page 7 for a chance to win passes to the premiere screening.
