Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3017 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-11-19
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A briskly paced hybrid of Boogie Nights and Goodfellas, Blow chronicles the three-decade rise and fall of George Jung (Johnny Depp), a normal American kid who makes a personal vow against poverty, builds a marijuana empire in the 1960s, multiplies his fortune with the Colombian Medellín cocaine cartel, and blows it all with a series of police busts culminating in one final, long-term jail sentence. "Your dad's a loser," says this absentee father to his estranged but beloved daughter, and he's right: Blow is the story of a nice guy who made wrong choices all his life, almost single-handedly created the American cocaine trade and got exactly what he deserved. Directed by Ted Demme, the film is vibrantly entertaining, painstakingly authentic... and utterly aimless in terms of overall purpose. We can't sympathise with Jung's meteoric rise to wealth and the wild life, and Demme isn't suggesting that we should idolise a drug dealer. So what, exactly, is the point of Blow? Simply, it seems, to present Jung's story as the epitome of the coke-driven glory days, and to suggest, ever so subtly, that Jung isn't such a bad guy, after all. Anyone curious about his lifestyle will find this film amazing, and there's plenty of humour mixed with the constant threat of violence and paranoid anxiety. Demme has also populated the film with a fantastic supporting cast (although Penelopé Cruz grows tiresome as Jung's hedonistic wife), and this is certainly a compelling look at the other side of Traffic. Still, one wishes that Blow had a more viable reason for being: like a wild party, it leaves you with a hangover and a vague feeling of regret. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
George Jung (Johnny Depp) doesn't want to live like his father (Ray Liotta)--always short of money and constantly berated by his mother (Rachel Griffiths). So he sets off for California to live on the beach, where he finds he can make a living selling drugs. Soon George's drug dealing business expands into shipping drugs across the country. Needing a bigger supply of drugs, he travels to Columbia and meets Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis). Before long, George becomes the biggest trafficker of cocaine in the United States. In BLOW, director Ted Demme and scriptwriters Nick Cassevetes and David McKenna chart George's strange course into a world of girls and sun, drugs and fun. It's all so easy until events change George's life forever.
Depp gives one of his best performances as George, instilling the character with a complicated mixture of emotions. For the supporting roles, Demme's eccentric casting includes German actress Franka Potente as George's girlfriend; Spanish actress Penelope Cruz as his wife; Australian actress Rachel Griffiths (who in real life is five years younger than Depp) as his withering mother; and Paul Reubens (in an excellent performance) as a hairdresser-cum-drug dealer.

Customer Reviews

Captivating
This DVD doesn't look promising, to say the least, but the development of the character, played brilliantly by Johnny Depp, and the sheer pace of the movie makes it an action-packed thriller. It keeps you entertained, but also keeps you on the edge of your seat at some moments. Penelope Cruz and the supporting cast are all brilliant, and it is brilliantly directed. Overall, it is a very good film that I would recommend.

Blows other films in its genre away
In this bio-pic, George Jung is a guy who starts out by selling pot in the California area. After a while though, he progresses to selling cocaine in the late 70's and early 80's with the infamous Pablo Escobar, and becomes a multi-millionaire (Jung, played by Johnny Depp very well, explains that if you bought cocaine in that time period in America, there would be a 85 percent chance it was from him). But then we see how things change with time, especially with Jung, which makes this movie even more fascinating and excellent.

While Blow is stylish, smart and hard edged with good stuff, the film also has compassion and feeling, in-particular in the third act which gives this movie a clever turn. Also with brilliant acting from the cast (the ensemble includes Depp, Paul Ruebens, Penelope Cruz and in a twist of a role from GoodFellas, Ray Liotta as Jung's dad) and a well told story, this is one of the best bio-pics and drug movies of the 00's.

Brilliant movie!
Many films (in the era it was made) had tried to make you beleive it was directed by Scorcese, thus meaning the director can gain some more respect. There has never been a film quite as close to Marty's flicks as Blow. Enter 3 decades of the rise and fall of George jung in the drug empire (played beautifally by Johnny Depp). We feel empathy for George, Something i'm sure the director had in mind whilst creating the movie.
The emotion is raw and you are thrusted into the rock and roll world of jung as he battles his way to the frontline, being betrayed, sent to jail on numerous occasions and finally losing his child to the women he thought he loved. What makes George earn most of your sympathy is that he did come clean and quit the business before he went to jail, earning you, the audience, his pain and sorrow.
Please give note to Georges parents. Especially Ray Liotta who plays second best in his supporting role. He plays a wonderful father to George that near the end of the film gives a performance so strong that you weep...
To conclude, the film is quite marvellous. It is a story that differs from Scarface in the 'rise to fame as a drug dealer' persona. It has reality, humour and most of all emotion.
I recommend Blow fondly.