Blow

Films about drug-dealing usually provide plenty of opportunity to entertain, given that excessive behaviour is mandatory and, Christ Almighty, that's what we vicariously imagine we all want. Of course, to console us for the reality of our more humdrum existences, there is a virtually obligatory "easy come, easy go" moral attached. Blow adheres closely to this format, playing on the fact that is based on a true story to give it extra cautionary value and it kicks off with bang, but the initial promise of high voltage thrills, announced by the Rolling Stones' Can't You Hear Me Knocking? is not realised.

Johnny Depp plays George Jung, a drug dealer who claimed to have imported about 85 percent of all the cocaine in America in the drug-mad 70s.  You’d think Demme wouldn’t have much trouble in making a good yarn out of this but all he manages to show us is that Jung was not a very interesting character and that no amount of wild partying could make him so. Go-to hipster Depp is, of, course, just the guy you’d cast in such a role but without a good script and a strong support cast he can’t carry the  film whilst the sad final scenes of the once top-of-the-world drug dealer reduced to a sad shadow of his former self only rubs in the sense of so-what about the whole shebang .

Still, it’s got great production values with set and costume design that will make it a real trip for 70s style boffins.
 

 

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