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Hotels | Shows | Concerts | Golf | Dining | Tours | Tickets | About Us | More Info | Contact | Buy Now | Links | Info Johnny Depp lands role meant for Robert Downey Jr. Las Vegas Mercury Blow doesn't. In fact, Blow is one of the best recent drug movies, rivaling even the acclaimed Traffic for its gritty, real look at the heart of drug smuggling. Plus, it's got Penelope Cruz as a Colombian drug moll. Talk about a stimulant. The story, based on an actual account, starts with East Coast expatriate George Jung (Johnny Depp) who comes to California and gets his first look at the good life. It's even better when he starts selling marijuana. He gets into the business thanks to a gay hairdresser and unlikely marijuana kingpin, Derek Foreal (the scene-stealing Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee-wee Herman). In the end, however, it's Jung who's thinking bigger, flying to Mexico to collect bales of marijuana and expanding the operation to his native East Coast. But after being caught in Chicago with more than 600 pounds of marijuana, far too much to claim he was hauling for "personal use," Jung jumps bail and goes on the lamb with his girlfriend, who's dying of cancer. When his bitchy mother (Rachel Griffiths, Hilary and Jackie) finally turns him in, he does his prison stint, but like so many others, instead of rehabilitation, he finds a criminal university. Partnering with his cellmate, Diego (Jordi Molla, making his debut appearance in an American film), George gets entre to the world of cocaine smuggling. The cocaine world is a little more serious than the marijuana scene. When George is finally introduced, through Diego, to cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar in Colombia, the meeting is preceded by a murder that Escobar seems unconcerned about concealing. They go into business anyway, and what a profitable business it is. Along the way, George meets and marries Mirtha (Cruz), who loves to party. (Then again, this is a cocaine film, and everybody loves to party.) Anyway, George scores big, and leaves the business, but declining fortunes and the promise of a new life lure him back, with some disastrous results. The backdrop, and the moral conscience of the film, is Fred Jung (Ray Liotta), George's father. A total contrast to his mother, Fred never judges his son, and stands by him even when he's sent to prison. One can't help wonder how different George's life, and the lives of so many others, would have turned out had drugs been legal. If they were widely available, the profit motive to cultivate, smuggle, distribute and sell would be gone, and they'd have to find honest work, as would their murderous competitors, street slingers and their pursuers in law enforcement. One thing is certain: George Jung wouldn't be in prison today if that were true.
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