“Blow” was the most elaborately made and arguably the best film from Ted Demme, director of “Beautiful Girls” and “Life Imprisonment”, who sadly died far too young at the age of 38. Johnny Depp stars and portrays the protagonist of one of the most amazing criminal careers in criminal history in a vibrant mix of emotional biopic, humorous environmental study and suspenseful thriller.
“Blow” will be on Tele 5 on March 18, 2023 at 8:15 PM. If the date doesn’t suit you or if you prefer to enjoy the work without commercial breaks, you can stream the film at any time as part of your Netflix subscription.
You can also order the Blu-ray or DVD from online retailers like Amazon. The FSK 12 title is also available there as a video-on-demand option for a fee.
“Blow” on Tele 5: That’s the story
More by chance than thanks to a master plan, George Jung (Johnny Depp) becomes the biggest drug smuggler in American criminal history in the 1970s. It all starts when he and his equally work-shy buddy Tuna (Ethan Suplee) persuade a few flight attendants like George’s girlfriend Barbara (Franka Potente) to bring small amounts of marijuana from Mexico into the country for them.
When George realizes at a certain point that good money can be made, he professionalises his extra income. Soon he is a rich man and not only the police but also the largest drug cartel in South America around the infamous Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis) take notice of him. Instead of some drugs, George is soon transporting planeloads of cocaine.
Within a very short time he earned 60 million dollars. However, since the sudden death of his great love Barbara, George has rarely been happy. For example, when he married the beautiful but not exactly easy to care for Colombian Mirtha (Penélope Cruz), who was soon expecting children. But these are only brief moments of lightness. Not only is Escobar not subtly putting more and more pressure on him, but the police are closing in on him…
Johnny Depp is the main attraction of ‘Blow’
The star of choice, of course, was Johnny Depp, who reached one of his career highs in 2001, shortly after brilliant performances in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and Sleepy Hollow. The Pirates of the Caribbean superstar clearly enjoyed showing off in all of the bizarre situations and scenarios Blow threw at him. He was clearly having fun with the cool outfits and weird hairstyles his character got to wear here. All the more so because of the dry jokes he managed to deliver like a man who didn’t even lose his cool in court or in prison.
Johnny Depp wasn’t the only big name in the cast. First of all, of course, Penélope Cruz (“Vanilla Sky”, “Volver”). With Franka Potente (“Run Lola Run”), one of the biggest names in recent German cinema was also part of the party with her first English-language performance. And with Cliff Curtis, a major player in the ‘Avatar’ blockbusters was represented. There were also Rachel Griffiths (“Sixth Feet Under”), Cruz’s Spanish compatriot Jordi Mollà (“Bad Boys II”), “My Name Is Earl” crowd favorite Ethan Suplee, Jaime King of “Sin City”, who are still very popular at the time was the young Emma Roberts (“American Horror Story”) and the recently deceased “GoodFellas” veteran Ray Liotta, who gave a great performance.
Depp, of course, had the best moments of the movie. But his co-stars all got at least one chance to star from director Ted Demme and the screenplay written by David McKenna (“American History X”) and Nick Cassavetes (“Alpha Dog”) – some very funny, others quite thoughtful or even sad. And all this without interrupting the flow of the story or making it seem episodic.
“Blow” is by no means a perfect film – our FILMSTARTS review, which nevertheless awards three and a half good stars, quickly makes that clear. But if you know how to deal with the smaller negatives mentioned there, the spectacle is a lot of fun. Our writer Carsten Baumgardt likens Blow more to Paul Thomas Anderson’s genius Boogie Nights than to Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning Traffic, released just a year earlier, in terms of his attitude to the potentially sensitive subject. And this despite the fact that the former was about the porn business and the latter also about large-scale drug smuggling.
The music contributes much to the film’s often jovial, then exciting and later appropriately melancholy atmosphere. The soundtrack to “Blow” consists almost entirely of classic rock songs from the era in which the action is set. We hear hits, but also a few lesser-known titles from acts such as the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Cream, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band or Lynyrd Skynyrd. Pretty much any scene with a song could be used as a music video for the track in question, purely visually and emotionally – also because chief cutter Kevin Tent’s cuts (“Schnackschlagt – Girl Interrupted”) often cleverly fit the tempo, sometimes even instantly the beat of each song is adjusted.
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