Blow
Starring: Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Jordi Molla, Ray Liotta, Rachel Griffiths
Directed by: Ted Demme
Running time: One hour and 59 minutes

Blow is a biography about a man named George Jung who claims there was a time when he was the proud importer of 85 per cent of all cocaine to the U.S. Does this sound like an interesting proposition? Yes, it does. Is Blow a good film? Not really. Stranger still, it is not because the filmmakers got the message or the atmosphere wrong; nor have they misinterpreted Bruce Porter's book, which the film is based on. On the contrary, the film is quite expertly made.

If there is one good reason to see it, it is for the film craft. It is cursed however, with a fatal flaw: George Jung is not even remotely interesting. As the renowned critic Roger Ebert put it, "Take away the drugs, and this is the story of a boring life in wholesale."

George (Johnny Depp) begins the journey to questionable glory and riches when he abandons his quiet life in Massachusetts for the Californian celluloid promise of money and girls. His comes up with an idea that is brilliant for its time: to smuggle marijuana from Mexico in the customs-free luggage of a stewardess. Girlfriend Barbara is the stewardess in question and they create a twisted version of the American dream.

George finds himself with a low risk, respectable income, joy and self-satisfaction in abundance. The irony is that its source is mildly illegal. The road to real money and the ultimate realization of George's version of success will take him to a source whose illegality is not so mild. His prison sentence causes the switch of allegiance: from delivering the sweet oblivion of pot to the anxious urgency of cocaine.

Enter the Colombians and Pablo Escobar, and George is equipped with a new, more lucrative business niche and a new soul mate, Mirtha (Penelope Cruz). Naturally, dealing with the Colombian drug barons is not an easy business, especially when George tries to make himself out as indispensable when the barons think the opposite. George is soon suffering one setback after another and we struggle to sympathize.

He is not even close to a decent human being as Ray Liotta in Goodfellas was. Neither does he possess the alluring strength of character, which Bob Hoskins had in The Long Good Friday. The former was a minor criminal and the latter was much more of a despicable monster, yet they were immensely more interesting, as were the films they acted in.

One could argue that director Ted Demme and Johnny Depp try to demythologize the world of drugs and crime with Blow just as Goodfellas and The Long Good Friday showed a questionable respect for their hero-villains. Blow's protagonist is real and will be in prison until 2014. The two other characters are nothing more than romantic cognitive figures. Even so, a noble poignant social mission does not make a great film, especially when the story is as boring as George Jung.