BLOW
Year: 2001
USA: New Line Cinema
UK: Entertainment Film Distributors
Cast: Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Franka Potente, Rachel Griffiths, Paul Reubens, Jordi Molla, Ray Liotta, Jacque Lawson, Lori L Bailey, Cliff Curtis, Ashley Edner, Noah Emmerich, DC Ford, Lola Glaudini, James King, Denis Leary, Monet Mazur, Kalin Olson, Max Perlich, Miguel Perez, Emma Roberts, Ethan Suplee
Director: Ted Demme
Country: USA
USA: 124 mins
UK: 123 mins
USA Rated: R for pervasive drug content and language, some violence and sexuality
UK Certificate: 18 contains strong language and drugs use
USA Release Date: 6 April 2001
UK Release Date: 25 May 2001
Synopsis
In the turbulence of the 1970s, the international drug trade underwent a fast, violent and lucrative revolution - and one ordinary American was at its center. He could have been your next door neighbor. But in just a few short years, George Jung, a high-school football star from Small Town USA, single handedly became the world's premiere importer of cocaine from Colombia's Medellin cartel, changing the course of an entire generation.
BLOW is a high-velocity look at George Jung's spectacular rise and fall - based on the true story (the novel, 'Blow: How a Small-Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost it All' by Bruce Porter) of how powder cocaine turned into America's biggest drug problem and how one man from the blue-collar suburbs became the 35 billion-dollar a-year conduit to the Colombian cartels. Ted Demme (MONUMENT AVE) directs this riveting look at the manic allure and dangerous reality of a drug smuggler's everyday life, and unfolds one of the great untold stories from the recent annals of American crime and culture.
From the hippie innocence of the 60s to the snow-blind money-chasing haze of the 80s, George Jung (Johnny Depp) pursued what he thought was the American Dream. Rather than become just another construction worker like his father (Ray Liotta), Jung moves to California where he discovers sun, romance and the profitable pleasures of selling marijuana. At first, dealing drugs is just a way to maintain his free-wheeling, independent lifestyle, but as he gets more ambitious, a bust stops Jung - temporarily.
In prison, Jung meets Diego Delgado (Jordi Molla), a talkative inmate who claims to be an insider in Colombia's rising drug trade. On the outside, Delgado introduces George Jung to Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis), the billionaire godfather of international cocaine trafficking, who has a plan to export tons of cocaine to American shores. Delgado also introduces Jung to a beautiful, self-indulgent party-girl named Mirtha (Penelope Cruz), who he marries. Ultimately, she gives birth to the greatest love of his life, his daughter Kristina Sunshine Jung.
Rolling in money and just when he thinks he's riding high, George Jung takes a dizzying fall that knocks him out of the underworld and into the hands of the Feds. BLOW outlines the lifestyle of a mega-rich smuggler and, ultimately, the tragedy of blowing all of your dreams for greed.