BLOW

4/10

USA 2001
director : Ted Demme
script : David McKenna, Nick Cassavetes (based on book by Bruce Porter)
cinematography : Ellen Kuras
editing : Kevin Tent
lead actors : Johnny Depp, Ray Liotta, Penelope Cruz, Franka Potente
124 minutes

As cocaine movies go, Blow is one part euphoric high, nine parts baby laxative: it gets up your nose, but there’s no danger of addiction. It’s easy to guess how the project came together – racy non-fiction biography of notorious drug dealer catches eye of bankable, counter-culture-friendly star. Episodic script is knocked up, journeyman director is hired, cast rounded out with dependable character actors and glamorous babes, including, of course, Penelope Cruz, ‘She-who-without-whom-no-film-can-be-made.’

Only two problems: direction and script. Demme doesn’t do very much wrong, but the last thing a movie about coke dealers needs is a safe pair of hands on the tiller. It’s as if he’s never seen a biopic before, never realised that endless voiceover narration is the laziest way to give form and coherence to choppy, episodic material. And it hardly ever works. Demme’s visual tricks aren’t much better: the same old ‘home movie’ sequences with an unconvincingly wobbly, blurry camera, the same old ‘stills montage’ to show the passage of time. It’s Boogie Nights lite, right down to the inevitable ‘jail phone’ two-hander.

There is good, promising material here – the screenplay just doesn’t recognise it. As we follow George Jung (Depp) from his 50s childhood in Massachusetts, through to the late 90s, as he faces up to life behind bars, the emphasis is constantly on family: his parents (Liotta, Griffiths) and his estranged daughter, Kristina. George is always embarrassing and shaming his folks, and vice versa, but by giving this story element so much screen time, the viewer can’t help making unflattering comparisons with Liotta’s earlier, far superior GoodFellas, or reflecting on the oddity of casting Griffiths, who fares as well as can be expected, given the fact that she’s six years younger than her screen son.

The Kristina stuff is even worse, taking the movie down increasingly tedious sentimental avenues as the aged George harps on about what a bad parent he’s been, and the movie just dribbles away to nothing, ending with a jarring, shudder-inducing still of the real George Jung. A little bit of these family subplots goes a long way, whereas the picture has no idea what to do with its real trump cards: Paul Reubens as bitchy Hollywood hairstylist Derek, George’s enigmatic California connection; and the imposing Cliff Curtis, who makes the most of his single scene as legendary Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar. But Blow is all George, George, George, an excuse for Depp to strut around in a variety of horrendous fashions and hairstyles. It’s an actor’s dream – he may be on cloud nine, but our highs are much fewer and further between.

31st May 2001

by Neil Young

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