Barnes & Noble

Based on Bruce Porter's biography of the same name, Blow tells the story of real-life drug kingpin George Jung (Johnny Depp), a working-class kid from New England who turned America on to the magic powder that made disco come alive. Echoing the trajectory of a cocaine high, the sunny euphoria of Jung's early days in the 1960s selling pot on Southern California beaches gives way to the manic, teeth-grinding frenzy of his big-scale coke smuggling during the 1970s, when he hooked up with Columbian Pablo Escobar's powerful Medellin cartel. By the mid-'80s, as arrests and betrayals send Jung's billion-dollar empire crashing down, his life becomes one long cocaine hangover. Breezily told, Blow dispenses with major chunks of story through rapid-fire, Goodfellas-like montages as Jung narrates in voice-over; much of the fun comes from checking out Depp's ever-changing array of period costumes and hairdos as the movie hurtles through the decades. Director Ted Demme slows the action down for Jung's periodic visits with his loving but ineffectual father (Ray Liotta) and his shrewish mother (Rachel Griffiths), who salivates over her son's ill-gotten gains, then later turns him in to the police. These scenes with the parents are meant to provide the key to Jung's character: In his marriage to Mirtha -- a Columbian bombshell (Penelope Cruz) who quickly goes from fantasy babe to coke-snorting, money-grubbing harridan -- we witness the reenactment of his family history. But it's never clear how Jung, who seems neither ruthless nor particularly smart, rises so high in a trade dominated by vicious, machine gun-toting drug lords. It's a testimony to Depp's immense appeal as a performer -- his ability to undercut his breathtaking good looks with a self-effacing sweetness -- that he manages to make us care about a character that we never really get a handle on. Blow hammers home its point that crime doesn't pay, but by the end we have so much sympathy for Depp that we almost wish that it did. Kryssa Schemmerling

All Movie Guide

Following the life of cocaine-trafficking pioneer George Jung in a way that recalls Martin Scorsese's Casino, Blow recounts the man's days from his 1950s childhood in Boston to his downfall in the 1980s. George (played by Johnny Depp) begins his life as the son of Fred (Ray Liotta), an earnest breadwinner, and Ermine (Rachel Griffiths), who frequently walks out on them in pursuit of a more fulfilling life. When George moves west to California in the late '60s, accompanied by best pal Tuna (Ethan Suplee), he becomes an entrepreneur in the marijuana business, which soon spreads to the East Coast as well, with girlfriend Barbara (Franka Potente) smuggling the product during her stewardess shifts. George is arrested in 1972 -- at which time Barbara dies of cancer -- but George finds a new ally in Diego (Jordi Molla), who proposes the idea that he become the American conduit for Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis). George flourishes in the heyday of the disco era, and falls for Mirtha (Penelope Cruz), a self-serving bombshell who eventually has a daughter with him. Trouble escalates as the FBI threatens to bring George and his crew down, while he desperately tries to be a stable parent to his young offspring. Blow also features Paul Reubens and Max Perlich in featured roles. Jason Clark

New York Post

In its way, this sometimes hilarious, sometimes deeply moving film has more to say about the influence of drugs on American society than the self-important Traffic. Lou Lumenick

Product Details

• UPC: 794043123443
• Source: NEW LINE HOME VIDEO
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby AC-3 Surround Sound
• Time: 2:03:00
• Sales Rank: 8,890

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• New Line Cinema's 40th Anniversary Collection

Features: