Review: ‘Blow’- heavy acting, diet coke

Geoff Carter

Thursday, April 5, 2001 | 9:47 a.m.

Blow

Grade: Two and a half stars

Starring: Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Paul Reubens, Ray Liotta.

Screenplay: Bruce Porter, David McKenna, Nick Cassavetes.

Director: Ted Demme.

Rated: R for pervasive drug content, language, some violence and sexuality.

Running time: 124 minutes.

"I went into prison with a bachelor's in marijuana," says George Jung (Johnny Depp), "and I came out with a doctorate in cocaine." The education, rise and fall of real-life cocaine dealer Jung is the backbone of "Blow," and to allow Depp to tell it is a blessing: Perhaps no other actor could have brought the vulnerability, cool and shaky-legged paranoia the role required.

Unfortunately, he's not the one telling Jung's story. That job falls to director Ted Demme ("The Ref," "Life"), who came into his career with a shot at a doctorate in Jonathan Demme (the "Silence of the Lambs" director is his uncle) but seems content to settle for a bachelor's in Paul Thomas Anderson. "Blow" pinches so much from "Boogie Nights" that the two films could probably wear the same bell-bottomed pants.

Like "Boogie's" Dirk Diggler, George Jung starts out as a more or less clueless kid with aspirations to fortune and glory. He leaves his working-class family (sharp turns by Ray Liotta and Rachel Griffiths) in Massachusetts, strikes out for Southern California with best friend Tuna (Ethan Suplee) and quickly settles into the marijuana-fueled ebullience of the late 1960s.

Before long, Tuna suggests they try selling grass themselves -- "Being as we don't want to get jobs and whatnot" -- and before long, Jung is a pot dealer, working in a family-like partnership with flamboyant hairdresser Derek Foreal (Paul Reubens), friend Kevin Dulli (Max Perlich) and his stewardess girlfriend Barbara (Franka Potente).

In this all-too-brief segment of the film, the viewer is given a chance to really meet Jung -- to see him demonstrate his unwavering loyalty to his friends, to smile at his inherent goofiness (there's something endearing in watching Depp bumble around Mexico, asking locals "Donde estas grass? Como weed?"), and most importantly, the audience is made to understand how Jung made a killing in grass.

"Blow" should kick into high gear after Jung goes to prison for the first time and for a time, it does. He meets Diego Delgado, a small-time hustler played expertly by Jordi Molla and makes the swing into cocaine even before he leaves prison; within months, he's dealing stateside for cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis) and literally married to the cartel, in the person of Mirtha (Penelope Cruz), a beautiful Columbian girl with a taste for wealth and a domineering streak.

There isn't a bad performance in the film, which would have put Demme's film over the top if he had a better idea of what the story was about. Is it about family, as Demme seems to think it is, judging by the way he labors the point in the last reel? Or is it about how the ill-advised actions of one man could affect millions? It's hard to get a bead on "Blow" as Demme wades through one musical montage after another, trying to mimic "Boogie Nights'" galloping pathos at the expense of vital story elements.

How does cocaine become America's stimulant of choice? What happens to many of the characters surrounding Jung (Molla's and Reubens' characters get hit worst in this regard)? And for that matter, what happens to America as a result of Jung's actions?

"Blow" seems indifferent to its surroundings, just as Jung was as he careened through his life and career, but the audience isn't Jung, and is never able to get behind him. Demme builds a city of cocaine around Depp and company and as it blows away in the wind, it leaves his actors standing alone in the middle of nowhere, completely without context.