Films To Watch Before You Die #29

D.J. Haza presents the next entry in his series of films to watch before you die…

Blow, 2001.

Directed by Ted Demme.
Starring Johnny Depp, Jordi Mollà, Penélope Cruz, Ray Liotta, Paul Reubens, Franka Potente and Rachel Griffiths.

Blow is the mind-blowing biopic of George Jung (Depp), an average guy who made $100 million smuggling and distributing cocaine in America through the 1970s for the Medellin Cartel and Pablo Escobar. It is estimated that if you sniffed cocaine in America during the 70s there was an 85 per cent chance that it came through George. Despite his fortune Jung ended up penniless and in prison where he still sits awaiting his release.

The film follows Jung from his humble beginnings in Massachusetts all the way to his incarceration. When George was a boy and his father (Liotta) filed for bankruptcy he made himself a promise that he was never going to be poor. When he grew up he moved out to California where he began dealing marijuana amongst friends and then became involved in moving cocaine from Columbia to America. As he brought more and more cocaine in he began to distribute it across the country and his money began to pile up.

George fell in love and got married, but lost his wife to illness. He was arrested several times and became a fugitive from the law. He later remarried and had a daughter, served 3 years in prison and then struggled to rebuild his relationship with his daughter. His money, which was deemed by Pablo Escobar to be safe, in a Panama bank was seized and his fortune lost. The remarkable story of George Jung has so many interesting, amazing and heart breaking twists and turns that it is hard to imagine all this happened to just one man.

Blow is a film you must see before you die because it is such a remarkable story and so heart breaking in the end when Jung is finally captured and sent to prison for 15 years. The film is accompanied by a great soundtrack with the title theme being The Rolling Stones’ ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?”