The Partying Gives Way to Predictability in ‘Blow’

Any time a new film begins, as “Blow” does, with the promise “based on a true story,” you can be sure that what it’s actually based on is other movies. Something about the concept of reality leads movie makers to seriously overdose on a smorgasbord of standard cinematic situations.

This seems to be especially true with stories involving drug use and abuse. “Blow,” which might be subtitled “The Man Who Invented Cocaine,” merely picks up where films such as “Scarface” (the Al Pacino--not the Edward G. Robinson--version) and “Rush” left off.

If you thought there wasn’t much to pick up from after those films, you’d be right. If nothing else, “Blow” underlines how shrewd the makers of “Traffic” were to intertwine three related narcotics stories. For this single cautionary tale of how drug innocence gives way to woeful, hung-over experience proves to be way too predictable to effectively caution or even involve anyone.

“Blow” does offer protagonist Johnny Depp another in his series of intriguing, quasi-leading-man roles, parts that demonstrate the innate charisma that has made him a star and that also invariably have an odd element of challenge about them. Here, as narcotics kingpin George Jung, the actor gets to age from a lithe twentysomething to an overweight, burnt-out case decades later while wearing enough different hairdos to make even disguise-prone actors such as Val Kilmer jealous.

To be fair, “Blow,” especially in its lively and comic opening 40 minutes, is also the best work director Ted Demme has done. But soon enough the fun goes out of substance abuse and with it any possibility of audience interest. For though Demme (“Monument Avenue,” “Beautiful Girls”) wants to be thought of as a director with a gift for emotional truth, when the film gets serious it merely underscores his lack of instinct for that sort of material.

George Jung is first met as a young boy trying to keep his equilibrium as the child of good-hearted, loving father Fred (Ray Liotta) and distant, acerbic mother Ermine (Rachel Griffiths). Though Fred tries to teach him that money doesn’t matter as much as people think, George leaves his impoverished Massachusetts childhood determined never to be poor again.

A 1968 move to Manhattan Beach with hefty-size best friend Tuna (Ethan Suplee of “Remember the Titans”) soon presents George with a moneymaking opportunity. Delighted to have stumbled on a beehive of dope-smoking stewardesses, he moves in with the glamorous Barbara (“Run Lola Run’s” Franka Potente) and makes use of her friendship with supplier Derek Foreal (an arch Paul Reubens) to find his true calling, moving drugs.

Watching the naive George figure out how to make increasing amounts of cash selling weed against the background of the feel-good late 1960s and early 1970s is “Blow” at its best. Working from David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes’ script based on a book by Bruce Porter, director Demme brings energy and momentum to detailing the fantasy version of the party that no one thought would ever end. Not even getting busted crowds George’s high: He airily argues that all he was doing was crossing an imaginary line with some plants. The judge is not amused.

While in prison George meets Colombian Diego Delgado (Jordi Molla) who introduces him to the world of cocaine and its traffickers. Naturally, George has a gift for this drug as well and soon he is grandly telling us in voice-over that if you used cocaine in the late ‘70s or the early ‘80s, 85% of it came from him. Perhaps a film about this guy isn’t enough, maybe a statue is in order as well.

The problem with “Blow” is not so much that a film was made about a drug dealer as that once that opening section’s energy has dissipated, no one could find a way to make the proceedings of even minimal interest. Not even the appearance, in not much more than an extended cameo, of Penelope Cruz as the trophy wife no successful drug dealer should be without, makes much of a difference. A film where the notion that “drugs make you lose sight of what’s important” passes for a searing insight is more tired than it knows or wants to admit.

*

* MPAA rating: R, for pervasive drug content and language, some violence and sexuality. Times guidelines: drugs, drugs and more drugs, with assorted murders thrown in.

‘Blow’

Johnny Depp: George Jung

Penelope Cruz: Mirtha Jung

Franka Potente: Barbara Buckley

Rachel Griffiths: Ermine Jung

Paul Reubens: Derek Foreal

Ray Liotta: Fred Jung

A Spanky Pictures/Apostle production, released by New Line Cinema. Director Ted Demme. Producers Ted Demme, Joel Stillerman, Denis Leary. Executive producers Georgia Kacandes, Michael De Luca. Screenplay David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes, based on the book by Bruce Porter. Cinematographer Ellen Kuras. Editor Kevin Tent. Costumes Mark Bridges. Music Graeme Revell. Production design Michael Hanan. Art director David Ensley. Set decorator Douglas A. Mowat. Running time: 2 hours.

In general release.