Demme's `Blow' cracks under pressure
By JUDE SEYMOUR and MATT NANIA
Scene Movie Critics
For director Ted Demme, "Blow" represents much more than a movie "about a bunch of people smuggling drugs." He acquired the rights to the book by Bruce Porter six years ago. Demme was "completely hooked by the byline of the book. [That byline] was: how a small time boy, a high school football All-American, went on to be Pablo Escobar's right hand guy. Had about a 100 million dollars cash in two years and then lost it all. It was classic Shakespeare."
Demme decided to follow up his reading by meeting its main non-fictional protagonist: George Jung. Jung, currently serving a prison sentence until 2015, was responsible for 85 percent of the cocaine distributed in the United States in the 1970s and 80s.
Demme was surprised in his prison encounter with Jung: "[I] found him intoxicating as a human being, really funny, really smart, really sad. I was really judgmental about him when I first met him ... I could not stop thinking about him, so I figured this must be a good sign. It will be a really good challenge as a director to make a classic anti-hero and have many sides to him," Demme told his audience at a post-screening interview in Chicago.
Demme (who directed "The Ref" and "Beautiful Girls") hoped to bring to the screen a complete picture of Jung, including all that he learned through the book and from subsequent interviews with Jung in prison.
"Blow," however, resonates as a frequently distracted piece. The beginning is a dizzying array of great moments, the middle sputters like the life of Jung (Johnny Depp), and the final message is muddled by its late arrival.
"Blow" tells Jung's story, starting with his early childhood. George leaves his home in 1968 to go out into the world and "be nothing like his parents." His father, Fred, (Ray Liotta), a punching bag for his alcoholic mother (Rachel Griffiths), is a man who believes in the old proverb "money isn't everything," mainly because he doesn't have any. Young George relates money concerns with domestic troubles and runs off to make a fortune. He partners with Derek Foreal (Paul Reubens) and they begin running a large pot distribution agency.
George's progress is stifled when the cops bust him and send him to Danbury Correctional Institute. In the penitentiary, George meets Diego (Jordi Molla), who acquaints him with something much bigger than pot: cocaine (or blow).
George's quest to distribute cocaine in the United States leads to an arranged encounter with Pablo Escobar (for those who don't know, Escobar was the ruthless leader of the Medellin Cocaine Cartel for two decades, and the United States' biggest drug problem). As Escobar's distributor, George makes 100 million dollars in two years. Allegiances in the drug business are not stable however, and George is soon double-crossed.
In an epiphany during the birth of his daughter, George decides to give up the business, get clean and raise his child with his fortunes. But, as as George tells the audience in a voice-over, no one ever gets out that easily.
Demme wishes to make evident that, despite George's bad decisions, he was a driven man. His drive was at first the money, but the incentive became his relationship with his daughter. What disturbs him most about getting sent to jail for the last time is not the loss of money or wanting to know who snitched, but the fact that he can't pick up his daughter for the weekend.
As a storyteller, Demme does not put enough emphasis on the daughter's role, and the film's heart is lost among the drug runs and distributors. Early scenes of Jung's dope peddling could have been condensed so that the daughter scenes would feel more important. As Demme himself admitted, "The movie is called `Blow'. What are we doing with scenes involving pot?"
In the end, Demme is left with themes that should have been eliminated to help make his message clearer. The director sets up a comparison between George's lovers, Mirtha (Penelope Cruz) and Barbara (Franka Potente), and dawdles with introductions to George's friends. All of this wears on the film, and since the important relationship doesn't start until the last half hour, the first hour and a half seems wasteful.
Despite the thematic choices, Demme excels with his casting decisions. Depp, bad Boston accent aside, makes an engaging character out of George. Demme applauded Depp's ability to become "a master of disguise. [The movie needs] an actor that will dummy themselves up for the role of George Jung. [It] didn't need a movie star." In addition, Reubens excels in his first big dramatic role, capturing the humorous aspect of his character while being in close touch with his human, emotional side.
"Blow" is an engaging, well-made film in many respects. Unfortunately, the less important themes strangle the film's message.
After six years working on the project, Demme had enough George Jung material for two feature films. In retrospect, scenes from the beginning that do not deal with "blow" or the daughter should have been eliminated so that the film's message would be clearer. "Blow," in trying to make two films in one time period, ends up being half of a great film.
"Blow" opens nationally on Friday, April 6.
--three out of five shamrocks
All Scene Stories for Thursday, March 29, 2001
