Blow Review
by SSG Syndicate (Ssg722 AT aol DOT com)April 12th, 2001
http://www.susangranger.com/
Susan Granger's review of "BLOW" (New Line Cinema)
Put this coke-drenched cautionary caper at the top of your "must see" list. Based on the true life story of George Jung, the first American to become one-man drug conduit, bringing Colombian cocaine into the United States in the '70s and '80s, it chronicles the rise and fall of a crime entrepreneur. Raised by dysfunctional parents, Jung was a money-hungry kid from Massachusetts, stoned in California's sun and surf, when he ran into a sultry stewardess who flew in marijuana from Mexico. So wh y not cocaine from Colombia? Jung saw himself as an ingenious modern-day pirate, defying politics, governments and the police. Eventually, he self-destructs with hedonism and greed and, as a result, will remain in prison until 2014. As Jung, Johnny Depp delivers a wickedly faceted display of acting prowess, filled with detail and specificity. Ray Liotta and Rachel Griffiths are poignant as Jung's troubled parents. Paul Reubens (a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman) scores as a homosexual hairdresser/dealer, Franka Pote nte's vibrancy glows as Jung's giddy girl-friend, and Penelope Cruz snarls as the selfish, spoiled shrew who becomes his wife. Too bad that the hyperambitious but predictably formulaic script by Nick Cassavetes and David McKenna is clich=E9-riddled and fragmented in its condensation of Bruce Porter's book and that director Ted Demme relies so much on Depp's voice-over narration as the third-act disintegrates into a banal morality morass. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Blow" is a disturbing 8, a ch illing saga that gets under your skin in its assertion that there's simply no way to stop the importation of drugs into this country. Although it will inevitably be compared to "Traffic," "Boogie Nights," "Casino" and "Goodfellas," "Blow" is a definite must-see.
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