Rating: 
Summary: Blow: Really freakin cool movie
Review: This movie was a great experience. Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Paul Rubens, and all of the supporting cast members did an excellent job in portraying the lifestyle their characters were living. This is a true story of Americas most infamous cocaine dealer, George Jung. In about 2 hours of time you see the rise and fall of this legendary man. The director also deserves a hand. The way this movie was filmed really gave you a good piece of what was happening in his life, but left some things in the dark, which made the movie all the more intriging. This movie shows the roller coaster type of life George Jung had at an interesting perspective. All of the massive massive amounts of drug dealing that was going on didnt seem like the works of a hardcore street hustler, but like the works of a man with ambition. All of the actors did a great job of potraying how drugs, power, and lots of money can effect people. An excellent flick.
Rating: 
Summary: Such a surprise!
Review: I really didn't have much of a desire to see Blow, but after watching it for the first time, I'm so glad I did! The story is truly incredible, and the fact that it's based on true events makes it even more fascinating. The acting is superb, and the soundtrack really transports you to the times. It has funny moments, sad moments, and is all around an entertaining flick. Not a dull moment. In regards to the DVD, I wouldn't want to own any other version. After the movie ends, you want to see more. And the DVD delivers with several interviews with the real George Jung, deleted scenes, and more. Lots of special features that emerse you deeper in the characters life and his amazing and tragic rise and fall.
Rating:
Summary: Just a great film!
Review: Blow is a story about the biggest drug dealer on the West Coast, George Jung. It takes place in the 70's and early 80's and Jung is played by Johnny Deep. There are several aspects to this film that make it great. 1. No matter how hard he tries George Jung can never get the approval of his parents, because he is making money illegally. 2. The more money Mr. Jung makes, it never seems that he is happy with his life. 3. When the characters start using drugs more frequently, you see them start to look worse and worse because of this. 4. No matter who he considers a friend, there are no friends in the drug business and George finds this out the hard way. When he is in jail the first time he forms a partnership with Diego, who has ties in Colombia and wants to move Coke. His other buddy Derek (Paul Reubens) helped George when he was dealing Pot, also gets involved because he helped George move 50 kilos (110 lbs) of coke in little over one day. Diego then decides to hook up with Derek and together fade out George, they basically cut out the middle man. His two friends stab him in the back and this is when he decides he is out. 5. One of his old buddies is part of a crew he works with towards the end, so he can have one last score and start a new life in Cali with his daughter. Little does he know that he will get stabbed in the back again because the crew is paid off by the FBI and DEA and bring George down for good! Those are just some of the things, but there is plenty more in this movie especially his wife Mirtha (Penelope Cruz) who sets him up as well. You owe it to yourself to watch this movie at least twice and then buy because it is that good!
Rating:
Summary: Superb filmmaking! Very real in its portrayal.
Review: This film had a very realistic feel to it, in terms of feeling as if you are actually witnessing the fall of George Jung. The very human side of Jung was portrayed as well, enabling the viewer to decide whether they wanted to really hate him as much as they think they would loathe a typical dope pusher, or to feel some empathy for how far he sunk into his world of coke and pot dealing, at the cost of his relationship with family and his freedom. All in all, an excellent, realistic portrayal of the risky, dark, and depressing world of drug dealing.
Rating: 
Summary: Technically excellent...
Review: I'm impressed with Infinifilm's presentation style in their DVD efforts. I really loved 13 Days (see a prior review), and if there is one thing worthy of notice in "Blow", it is the presentation, technical style and DVD extras. No attempt is made in the actual film to explore the horrors of cocaine, but the two
documentaries make it clear how the 70's drug of choice has devastated the culture and society of Colombia, along with the lives of many. Ted Demme, a fine director, explores what scenes were left on the cutting room floor in an entertaining piece, and the real George Jung gives a film interview that makes the "goings on" in Blow seem a little closer to reality. That said, the film was a disappointment to me - well filmed, with no seeming point or passion. I felt that Johnny Depp was
believable and totally in character for the role, and perhaps he
and Demme meant to have him exhibit little or no passion or chemistry with the central women in his life, his mother, his wife, his daughter. He's believable in the youth scenes and the drug trafficking scenes, in prison....but seeing him try to make us believe that his daughter is the central focus of his life...well, it just didn't feel that way on the screen. Ray Liotta is miscast and subdued as Jungs' dad, and, with every passing flick I grow more and more disenchanted with Penelope Cruz, who just seems to show up on the screen, emote a little, and hurry to get back to her film trailer. Capt. Corelli was disastrous, she is strident and unattractive in Blow, and, intuition tells me that Vanilla Sky will fall on its face. So, you take a bit of pop culture, add an incredibly talented leading man and director with little support from the other cast, and perhaps not enough of a tale to tell, and you get "Blow". Not a favorite of mine.
Rating:
Summary: Strangely Familiar, Wildly Entertaining.
Review: I have to admit, I did find this film very entertaining. It does steal it's cinematography, direction, and soundtrack style from 1990s Martin Scorsese classic "Goodfellas" in a very obvious rip-off though. Let's face it, that's part of what makes it entertaining. What a compliment, over a decade and someone is still trying to capture that magic. .............There IS some magic herein. The film moves along interestingly, doesn't really have any dull moments, and is easy to follow. This is a very watchable cast as well. I personally found this film far more interesting than "Traffic", which felt slow, and too convoluted. I will say that Johnny Depp was somewhat annoying to me in his role as main character George Jung. He wasn't a sympathetic character, he just seemed like a moron who managed to accrue a ton of money illegally, only to "Blow" it. I didn't care about him or anyone else in the film, due to the one big fault here, poor character development. Everyone in the movie seems empty, with the exception of Ray Liotta, who did a fine job as George's dad. I disliked Depp's bogus New England accent, it was annoying to listen to his narrations of the events. This only thing worse? His moms annoying nasal whine. I lived in New England at one time, nobody sounded like this! I also can't fathom why George evolves into such a doofy goofball toward the end, after having been a fairly cool guy at the beginning. ............... The plot develops heat in the form of beautiful Mirtha (Penelope Cruz). She is a hedonistic, self indulgent Columbian coke family princess. There is some steamy sexual chemistry as the two meet at a wedding of Georges closest Columbian associate. George steals Mirtha from a rival who can't fight his good standing with Pablo Escobar, famed (or so they say) lord of the (drug)rings. The two words "I Do" turn George into more than just a "gringo" to the cartel. He becomes part of the family too. Of course, that's not ALL he becomes as a result of this union. Watch and see for yourself. .............Something I found funny, is the not so coincidental casting of Ray Liotta as Georges n'er do well Dad, and the goomah(girlfriend) he kept on the side in "Goodfellas", playing Georges Dad and Mom respectively. .............For the most part, watching the rise and fall of Jung from the 60s as a drug dealer who starts with marijuana, then pushes the envelope to a 70s Cocaine empire, is fun. You get an excellent feel of those eras in time, the clothes, hair, music ect. Again though, a similar agenda to "Goodfellas." The only difference? One was the rise and fall of a "mobster" the other a "drug dealer" but still, chronicled in similar fashion during the same eras. However, since Henry Hill and associates did traffic and sell cocaine in a major amounts, the only difference is with "Blow" is, that's the ONLY basis of the story. ...........That said, although one dimensional in its plot, not delving too deeply into who anyone actually is, or really getting any feeling for the characters beneath the facade, surface fluff this colorful, is STILL fun and entertaining. That means, it's definitely worth a look.
Rating: 
Summary: It blows.
Review: "True" story of a drug dealer named George Jung. "George WHO?" you're asking. Well, whatever. Somebody cared enough to make a movie of the dude's life. I am sorry to say that I have seen this movie about a million times already. *Blow* is a 2-hour cliche: the rise and fall of an idiot. Who freakin cares. I am so sick of this story. We get the unhappy childhood, the golden-oldies soundtrack, the groovy clothes, the Drug History For Dummies lesson ("If you did cocaine in the late 70's or early 80's, there's an 80% chance you got it from me" [prove?]; as well as "This is Pablo Escobar" . . . et cetera), the shiny clothes of the Reagan era, forbidden love with a witch on wheels, cross-generational regrets, Oedipal motivations, self-hatred, prison, heart attacks, on and on -- I. DO. NOT. CARE. This movie has all the suspense of last year's newspapers. Director Ted Demme reveals a profound lack of imagination with this picture. Lack of insight, as well: why does he think we should care about this loser? Am I supposed to feel bad for a spoiled-rotten baby boomer who thought he could get away with drug dealing for the rest of his life? The proper response at the end of *Blow* should be: "Uh, yeah . . . SO?" Performances? Mr. Depp looks mighty uncomfortable under some of the worst Rod Stewart-ish wigs ever put on screen -- given these circumstances, who can act? (Certainly not Penelope Cruz. She sounds like a gnat. And she's not even that pretty, if you ask me.) It was also unfortunate to see Ray Liotta, a fine actor, hidden under bad old-age make-up. Final thought: Paul Reubens, sans the Pee-Wee costume; Alan Cumming . . . separated at birth?
Rating: 
Summary: weak spined drug saga
Review: Coming as it does so hot on the heels of the brilliant, multi-leveled "Traffic," "Blow" emerges as a superficial, shallow and second-rate survey of the drug-dealing world. Spanning close to five decades, the film chronicles the true-life account of one George Jung, a hotshot cocaine trafficker from the 1970's who is currently serving a 60-year prison sentence for his crimes. Very little about this film feels original or authentic, as it travels a dramatic arc that seems totally predictable for films of this genre ("Traffic," by the way, did NOT follow this path). We start with George's unhappy home life growing up in Massachusetts in the 1960's, then it's onto his introduction to drug selling on the beaches of California, his trips to Colombia for meetings with the famous drug cartel leader, Pablo Escobar, his seemingly endless arrests, imprisonments and releases from prison and finally, of course, his too-late realization that the only thing of any value in his life is his little daughter whose life he is managing to screw up in a royal way. The early days of his "career" - when he is just a young punk making his connections and getting his feet wet in the "glamorous" world of the burgeoning late-60's drug culture - are dramatized on screen with tedious predictability. Even the youthful looking Johnny Depp may be getting a bit long-in-the-tooth to be portraying a late teen, early twenty-something beach bum. The film picks up a little dramatic energy when George is introduced to Escobar, but this aspect of the film is dropped almost immediately in order to concentrate on the tiresome interpersonal backstabbing between George and a number of his drug-running cronies. I realize that this is supposed to be based on a true story, but it is still a shame when the movie ends up having to downplay and eventually even jettison the one subplot that carries with it at least some dramatic validity. Equally uninteresting is George's relationship with his wife, Mirtha (Penelope Cruz), a stereotypical cocaine-snorting, Latina sexpot, more concerned with her drug supply than with her husband and daughter. The filmmakers even try to draw some heavy-handed parallels between George's family (weak but loving father, emasculating, self-centered mother) and the family he has formed with his own wife and daughter. The biggest failure of the film comes in its clunky attempts to make George into some kind of admirable, sympathetic figure. Fully the last half hour of the film is spent showing us just what an "innocent victim of circumstance" George turns out to be. Even when he is trying his damnedest to go straight, the vagaries of fate keep conspiring against him to draw him back into the world of crime and prison. We are supposed to feel sorry for him because he can't seem to get his life together well enough to be able to raise the daughter he so obviously loves. Yet, when he is finally given the chance to prove his love to her by supporting her and her mother financially, what does he end up doing but arranging for yet another (and in this case abortive) drug deal. It is one thing to provide us with an emotionally complex, morally ambiguous character. It is quite another to expect us to feel pity for a man whose modus operandi is that of sheer stupidity. All our empathy for the character ends up flying out the window and all we can do basically is to feel that the character got what was coming to him. As George, Johnny Depp seems to be sleepwalking through the part, although it may not be entirely his fault. Writers Bruce Porter and David McKenna and director Ted Demme never establish that feeling of explosive dramatic intensity so crucial to a film of this nature. In fact, for a film dealing with the dangerous world of drug trafficking, "Blow" seems to just sit there lackadaisically on the screen for most of its duration, devoid of energy, tension and drama. Needless to say, "Blow" ain't no "Traffic."
Rating:
Summary: Blow? It sure does.
Review: Putting it quite simply, Blow blew. While I greatly admire Johnny Depp, and think he has amazing talent as an actor, not even he, nor any of the other talented supporting cast members, could save this piece of garbage. The movie plods along slowly, without any real purpose. Sure, there are some fun scenes along the way, but the movie doesn't seem to have a real point. I'm not going to tell anyone not to watch it; everyone should form their own opinions. But I'd definitely suggest renting it before splurging on a DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Standout performances by Depp and Cruz
Review: "Blow" is a very good biopic on the life of cocaine kingpin George Jung (Johnny Depp) who rose to prominence in the 1980's as one of the largest cocaine traffickers in the United States. The story is an interesting character study of Jung, who started selling marijuana to pay some bills and found that demand continued to outpace his ability to supply until he had built a cocaine empire. In an interview from prison included on the DVD, Jung states that the story was very true to actual events and that in certain cases it was like a flashback. Jung appears from this interview to be a hapless soul who was willingly swept along by a riptide of forces that were beyond his sway, which is exactly how Depp portrayed him. Johnny Depp is an excellent character actor who relishes playing odd and offbeat characters. In this film he gives one of his best and most nuanced performances with a clear understanding of the motivations and circumstances that spun Jung out of control. He plays Jung with naiveté rather than giving him the sinister character that one might expect from a drug lord. After having seen the interview with the real Jung it seems Depp was right on target. Penelope Cruz also expands her horizons, shedding her normally sweet persona to take on the part of Jung's shrewish, drug addicted wife. Cruz plays the part with great force and emotion, like a woman possessed. It is a fantastic portrayal of a bitter, self centered woman with a drug problem. Paul Reubens continues his comeback from the ill fated Pee-wee Herman days with a solid portrayal of Derek, the double dealing hair dresser who becomes Jung's primary distributor. Rachel Griffiths and Ray Liotta also give fine performances as Jung's clueless parents. This character study is well written and sympathetically presented by director Ted Demme. I rated it an 8/10. It contains standout performances by both Depp and Cruz and is well worth seeing.
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