Blow (2001) * * *

Directed by:  Ted Demme

Starring:  Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Cliff Curtis, Ray Liotta, Rachel Griffiths, Paul Reubens, Franka Potente, Ethan Suplee, Emma Roberts

Whomever coined the phrase "a fool and his money are soon parted" must have had a guy like George Jung in mind.   Blow is the story of Jung, who should've found another job than drug dealing.    As Jung put it himself in voice-over narration during a long prison term:  "My ambition was greater than my talent,"    He as at least honest with himself.    There was a point in Jung's career in which he was supposedly distributing 85% of the Medellin cartel's drugs and the money poured in, but Jung couldn't sustain it.    He was too trusting, too forgiving, and walked right into being pinched by the feds on more than one occasion.     It cost him everything, and then more, since in the end his daughter wouldn't even visit him in prison. 

Blow chronicles Jung's (Depp) life from late 1960's California to the point in which a federal charge puts him in prison for a sixty-year sentence (he was paroled in 2014, thirteen years after Blow was released).   He has no job in California and no prospects; he stumbles into marijuana dealing which grows big enough for him to take on a partner, hairdresser Derek Foreal (Reubens).    The weed dealing goes well enough, and George plans to marry his sweetheart Barbara (Potente), but then things go awry when he is picked up in Chicago for distribution and skips bail to take care of the suddenly terminally ill Barbara.

When George is apprehended at his parents' house (because duh) in Boston, he is sent to prison with a cellmate who specializes in cocaine dealing.    As George puts it, "I graduated prison with a master's degree in cocaine,"   The product is deadlier, more expensive, and with higher stakes involved, but this doesn't make George any better at his job.    He meets Mirtha (Cruz), with whom he marries and has a child, but Mirtha behaves as if being with George is a step down for her.    She liked him better when he was just her lover, and soon she is addicted to coke and drawing the feds' attention with lavish parties which included Pablo Escobar's associates as guests. 

As portrayed in Blow, George Jung is a sap who finds he is way in over his head in the drug world.    He is a nice enough guy, which causes him to trust the people who will ultimately screw him over.    He soon has a giant house with four Maserati sports cars in the garage, but he looks the part of a big-time drug dealer rather than truly embodying the life.    His life is a prison sentence waiting to happen.    Even his father (Liotta), who wants his son to be happy even if it is dealing drugs, says, "This money isn't real," and years later, George realizes what he meant.

The best scenes in Blow involve George's relationship with his daughter Kristina Sunshine (Roberts), whom George deeply loves, but finds he must do the very thing to support her which also put him in prison for years at a time:  drug dealing.    Kristina is no pushover, and is reluctant to believe her father when he says he wants to move to California with her, but in total George-like fashion, he finds he has to break yet another promise to her when he is busted again.     George isn't cut out for anything else, although he should've at least tried.

Depp is as sympathetic as can be for a guy who is a drug dealer, even though he dealt product which separated some people from their family members permanently.    George's problem is his tunnel vision.    He doesn't see the angles and can't foresee where the business is going.    He thinks everything will last forever and work out in the end.    During his last prison stretch, he has what he believes is a tearjerker reunion with his now grown daughter, but we learn this is not the case.    This is George's price for choosing the wrong line of work, and it should come as no surprise that his relationship with Kristina even today is estranged.   The universe has its own brand of justice.