Blow Review
By Joe Lozito
Druggie Nights
How sad for 70s drug czar George Jung that the highlights of his life have been so overdone by Hollywood that the film "Blow," which is actually based on his life, ends up feeling familiar and predictable. The drug busts, the smuggling through customs, the wild parties, they've all been done before and in most cases better.
It doesn't help that director Ted Demme (Beautiful Girls) injects nothing new into the genre which was so memorably defined by Martin Scorsese. Where P.T. Anderson's "Boogie Nights" felt like the "Goodfellas" of porn and Scorsese's own "Casino" handled the gambling industry, "Blow" is caught between imitation of its predecessors and finding a style of its own.
The fault may not lie in the direction by Ted Demme, it may simply be that George Jung's story does not lend itself to this format. Mr. Jung, who is credited with bringing Columbian cocaine to America during the 70s, is caught by the police and bailed out so many times that the sheer state of his parole violations would be more interesting than the drug smuggling.
Penelope Cruz, who needs to pick some better projects for her crossover into English language films, is on hand in the Sharon Stone role from "Casino". However, her relationship with Mr. Depp's George is so underdeveloped that her first name is never even made clear. Paul Reubens also puts in some time as a drug dealing hairdresser who can't seem to decide whether or not to give in to his character's inherently clichéd homosexuality.
Only Johnny Depp and Ray Liotta (as Mr. Jung and his father) rise about the material to give the film some much needed heart. Of course, Mr. Liotta's presence is a constant reminder of the far superior "Goodfellas" to which "Blow" owes much. For all the coke-snorting and recklessness in the film, "Blow" never reaches the fever-pitch of Scorsese's definitive biopic.
