If drugs themselves accentuated the banality of "Blow," there would be no drug problem, period. Though marketing has suggested the contrary, Ted Demme's ("Beautiful Girls" and "The Ref") exercise in mediocrity spawns a main character who is self-centered, uninteresting and naive. "Blow" errs by not delivering its promised high.
Based on a true story while employing the framework of Scorsese's "Goodfellas," "Blow" centers in on the life of George Jung (Johnny Depp) from adolescence to late adulthood. Jung, who led the powdered cocaine (or blow) revolution that blew up in America mainly during the 1970s, starts out humbly in the film.
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He begins his career by distributing marijuana to the beach crowd of California. This "job" grows out of Jung's necessity to earn money with minimal work, thereby circumventing the financial pitfalls faced by his honest-working father (played by Ray Liotta). Along the way, Jung partners with Derek (Paul "Pee-wee" Reubens), a gay hairdresser responsible for Jung's first dope score.
The business grows exponentially as Jung starts to sell to rich college kids on the east coast where the "good stuff" is sparse. Though Jung's flight attendant girlfriend, Barbara (Franka Potente from the kinetic "Run Lola Run"), smuggles the pot between coasts, she can only carry so much.
To alleviate this limitation, Jung goes straight to the source -- a dope plantation in Mexico -- and transports hundreds of pounds at a time via a stolen plane. Jung's prominence in trafficking leads to multiple drug arrests, prison terms and parole violations, but he eventually ascends to the pinnacle of the trade by becoming the primary American distributor for none other than Pablo Escobar, the infamous Colombian drug czar.
A lack of novel insights leads "Blow" into the realm of monotony. The screenplay, written by David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes and based on Bruce Porter's book, gets ensnared within the confines of the real Jung's cyclical life.
The same basic events repeat unremittingly, especially in the latter half of the movie: Jung and colleagues ride high on their booming entrepreneurship before they sooner or later get busted; Jung skips out on bail, becoming a fugitive and/or serving time; his closest friends and family betray him, et cetera. Someone take the script out of the dryer, please.
Of course, the predictability quotient is high because of recurring episodes -- the major problem here is an almost complete focusing upon the encyclopedic aspects of Jung's life. Does Jung realize the upshot of his actions in unleashing such a juggernaut on America? Does he even care? The audience will never know. A deficiency in morality pervades "Blow," so much so that it is a mystery how the film can futilely beg for sympathy in Jung's melodramatic finale.
Far superior drug-related movies, "Traffic" and "Requiem For A Dream," focus respectively on the importance of re-targeting the drug war and on examining addiction on a breathtakingly realistic new level.
"Blow" instead meanders through the wearisome details of Jung's business relationships and his inevitable downfall catalyzed by the treachery of those closest to him.
Fortunately, Demme steams ahead with what little narrative there is, but at the cost of extraneous camera tricks. Demme attempts to engross viewers with freeze frame and slow motion shots that add negligibly to the movie, thereby showing his desperation to infuse a bit of Scorsese or Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights").
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The filmmakers also haphazardly ignore how Jung effortlessly violates his parole time after time. (Apparently he was bestowed with one of those Monopoly "Get Out of Jail Free" cards.) Parole "forces" him to live with his parents and maintain a local job, yet parental questioning regarding his constant traveling and job responsibilities are conveniently overlooked.
Depp instills Jung with the multi-dimensionality the character requires. Known for taking quirkier roles, Depp succeeds at playing the subdued man whose lifestyle ultimately shatters any loving relationship he has. Rachel Griffiths plays her caricatured role flawlessly as Jung's self-absorbed mother. On the other hand, Penelope Cruz, playing Jung's coked-up wife, makes a spectacle of herself in several unintentionally comical tantrums.
The irony is that for "Blow," a movie centered on drug trafficking, the "product" could have been practically anything illegal. Drugs rarely are seen in a negative light in this film; Jung might as well have been smuggling fruit. When the smoke clears, Demme et al. blow it by soliciting empathy for a man who has destroyed far more lives beyond his own.
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