Blow [Blu-ray]

A slightly glossy but mostly very accurate film based on the life of the infamous drug importer George Jung, this is a really engaging and very well made film staring Johnny Depp as Jung who I have to say puts in a great performance - pretty much faultless. The film charters Jung's start in life as a kid from a very poor background who was motivated by his own parent's difficult situation to never be poor when he grew up and to give a better life to his own children. Unfortunately, as we see when we fast forward to the grown up Jung, he does this by drug-dealing. Initially this is relatively small scale pot dealing but circumstance leads to the situation that would truly change his life, and the narcotics landscape of America, when he would go on to become the main importer of cocaine to the USA after starting a ludicrous working relationship with Pablo Escobar.As we see this progression and watch the personal and professional ups and downs of Jung , intentionally or not, the film does a great job of underplaying some of the negatives of his actions (for example the violence involved in both the upper ends of importing huge amounts of cocaine into America - with Jung responsible for an estimated 80-90% of the USA's cocaine levels at the time - and the lower ends of street dealing) and as a result the focus the film places instead on Jung's motivations and personal relations makes it incredibly easy to feel sympathy towards him and root for him whilst completely ignoring the wider implications of his actions. Perhaps for the purpose of this film and for the viewer to focus on Jung's personal inner journey it was necessary, and in that respect it works - it's very easy to feel empathy for Jung and to care about what happens to him, but strictly speaking the film ignores large chunks of the realities of the world in which Jung operated before his final downfall. It's still a great film, but that would be my one criticism. You could watch Boogie Nights straight after and imagine it filling in the gaps - its set around the same time and shows the very brutal and depressing realities of that world, at both dealer and consumer level, and although a tough watch in places is a really great hard-hitting film.

All good

One of the best movies I have ever seen. Johnny did a PERFECT job playing as George Jung, MUST WATCH!!!

A little while back I read an extract on Depp, where the writer was very complacent toward his career before 2000. From there after, he suggested that Depp declined from a consistantly increasing mode to the peak of his career as a result of the roles he'd been given to play. To that I began to address my opinions of Johnny Depp movies I'v particularly ranked high, majority of which were made/ release after 2000. 'Blow' is definitely one of them. With a surreal adaption of true events, Depp captures an audience as George Jung, a man in the pursuit of what he assumed to be the american dream. This leads him to moving to California with his pal Tuna and having nothing more than $300 in there pockets. Jung finds the pleasures of selling Marijuana on the sunny beaches of California, freewheeling an independent life that quickly unravels into a thirst of money and aims at becoming the king-pin importer, if you like, of Columbian Cocaine. This movie was powerful and relived events to what was once a George Jung's permissive life. With an expected well-portraying father to George, Ray Liotta captures as a loving father who cares for his son, despite his situation, with a unemphasised poignant backing. The film is indeed prevalence to the 80's and the very depth that was George Jung and his constant shift life and his run in's with the law.The Blu-Ray transfer was exceptional, everything you want to expect from Blu-Ray. Sound and Picture transfer is stable, no volume spicks or grainy transfer. Quality Product.

Blow is a 2001 American biopic based on the real life stories of George Jung, Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder Rivas (portrayed in the film as Diego Delgado), and the Medellín Cartel. The film opens to a young George witnessing yet another row between his parents. When his dad loses his small business, George says he will never be poor when he grows up. Skip forward and an adult George (Johnny Depp) moves to Southern California with his friend "Tuna" (Ethan Suplee). There he meets Barbara (Franka Potente), an airline stewardess, who introduces them to Derek Foreal (Paul Reubens), the regions main dealer and they soon dominate the local scene. When they hear from Kevin Dulli (Max Perlich), a college student back in Boston, that there is an enormous market—and demand—for pot in Boston they step things up. The remainder of the film charts Georges rise, fall rise again and fall.George Jung may have imported 89% of the cocaine into the USA but in reality all he did was operate as a middleman between suppliers and addicts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an interesting story and starts off quite well, but I feel the real story –the tension between the differing layers of suppliers was underplayed. Only one person is seen to be killed yet Escobar and Noriegar were extremely violent men and the film never explains the reality of those destroyed by the events portrayed and it all becomes too sentimental in the end and the movie goes out of its way to humanises the drug-dealer.Slick and well produced, with a strong cast and a solid soundtrack, this is undoubtedly a good piece of entertainment, but as a ‘true’ story, lacks the overall brutality that the subject demanded. It easily gets a *** but the sentimentality and glossy portrayal of the jet set lifestyle without much of the negative paranoia it involves lets it down from being a truly great movie and the disc does have 107 minutes of extras, including an interview with George and a film on the effects of the drug trade on Colombia.