Blow
Blog Entry #7
Blow is based on the true story of George Jung (Johnny Depp), who grew up in a Massachusetts household with financial problems. George's dad (Ray Liotta) has always done what he was supposed to and has always been in debt, even verging on bankruptcy. George's mother Ermine (Rachel Griffiths) gets into frequent, fights with her husband and periodically walks out. George, a product of the '60s, is young, shiftless and sure of one thing: he does not want to end up like his father.

In 1968 George takes off for the land of milk and honey (California) with his friend Tuna (Ethan Suplee). They move themselves in a beachfront house in Manhattan Beach, where the beer flows freely and babes everywhere. "Every girl was a stewardess," George observes. "People were liberated and independent and used words like 'right on' and 'groovy,' and in the early morning were often stoned."

One of the people they meet is a gay hairdresser named Derek (Paul Reubens), who is also the neighborhood pot source. It occurs to George that this might be a business opportunity; he discusses it with Derek, and soon they are making more money than George ever dreamed possible, just by cruising the beach for customers.
George realizes that this business could easily go national; when his old buddy Dulli (Max Pertich) visits, they set up a marijuana delivery system at Boston's Logan Airport. The courier will be George's new girlfriend (and stewardess) Barbara (Franka Potente).
By 1970 he is rich enough to buy a huge casa with swimming pool in Acapulco for himself and Barbara. When his parents come to visit, mom is blown away by Barbara's two-carat diamond ring.

But nothing lasts forever; in 1972 he is busted in Chicago with 660 pounds of marijuana. His lawyer pleads his sentence down to five years; he serves two. Meanwhile Barbara dies of cancer, the old gang breaks up, George violates parole and is on the lam. He ends up in prison again, where his roommate is a car thief named Diego (Jordi Molla).
Diego has drug contacts, and as soon as George is released he graduates to pushing cocaine, introduced to Colombian drug king Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis) by Diego. He meets Mirtha (Penelope Cruz), the wife of a Colombian, and decides to make a move on her. They eventually marry; only after the birth of his daughter Kristina does he begin to question what he's doing.
Depp tends to take challenging roles. I'm not sure why he took this one, which doesn't really require much of him. Cruz, who looks spectacular in a red spangly dress when she is first seen, actually has a more interesting part than Depp's, as she finds herself trying to explain Depp to Kristina.

George didn't set out to get into the distribution business, but the cash was to good to pass up. His story is a cautionary tale presumably told to dissuade others from doing likewise. George was in fact the first American to import cocaine into the U.S. on a large scale. He had it all for a while, but got caught and will be in prison until 2015, when he will be 72. He has lost everything, including contact with his daughter.

I suppose this is an important story; it tells history about an individual that has a dream, but all dreams come to an end. The acting is okay, the filming is okay. I, for one, am suspect of stories about drug dealers and drug warfare, and one thing that bothers me is the use of the f - bomb. Other than that I did enjoy this film.