Over the years, we've heard a lot about how to end the cocaine problem in America. But we haven't heard too much about how it all started. Ted Demme's new film, Blow, aims to change that.

Here at last is the compelling saga of the intrepid entrepreneur (a criminal entrepreneur, but an entrepreneur nonetheless) whose charm, smarts, guts, determination and sheer luck turned him into one of the biggest drug dealers in the history of the United States. It is the tale of one George Jung (Johnny Depp), a blonde-haired kid from Boston who leaves his blue collar roots and moves to Los Angeles in the late 1960s. Needing money, but not wanting to work very hard, George discovers he can make an easy living selling marijuana. He hooks up with a flamboyant hairdresser (a very good Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman) who supplies him with the weed, and before you know it, George is running a lucrative coast-to-coast operation. Soon, he's flying stolen planes into Mexico to collect the dope and cut out the middleman.

The law eventually catches up with Jung, and tosses him in prison. But as fate would have it, his cellmate is an aspiring drug smuggler from Colombia named Diego. Diego is a man with a dream. That dream is to build a coke empire in the U.S. But he has more than a dream, he knows people -- namely one Pablo Escobar.

When they get out, Diego introduces George to the notorious kingpin. George already has the distribution network in place. Pablo has the cocaine. It's a match made in drug lord hell. If it weren't so horribly destructive, what plays out next would be lauded as an American success story. Henry Ford got America driving cars. Steve Jobs got everyone using personal computers. George Jung got everyone hooked on cocaine. According to the film, more than three-quarters of all the cocaine snorted in the U.S. in the late '70s and early '80s came through Jung.

Demme tells this saga at a stylish, classic-rock driven pace that's rightfully been compared to Boogie Nights and accurately derided as second-rate Scorsese.

Depp is fine as Jung. He gives a low-key performance, shrouded in sunglasses and a decent Boston accent. Ray Liotta is quite good as George's father, who tries to teach him early on that love and family is more important than money -- a lesson George ignores, resulting in his undoing. But the big family conflict for George is with his mother (Rachel Griffiths) who is so ashamed of having a drug dealer for a son that she doesn't hesitate to turn him in at one point. It should be mentioned that the casting of the parents is, at times, a bit awkward. Liotta is only eight years older than Depp, and Griffiths is actually five years younger than the actor who's playing her son. Both Liotta and Griffiths are aged with make-up, but the illusion isn't always convincing. A shockingly thin Penelope Cruz arrives in the film's last third, playing George's bitchy, repulsive Colombian wife. As one of a string of friends and loved ones who betray George, she does a nice job of creating a character for us to despise. (Cruz is one of the most beautiful women in the world, but seeing her play pregnant cocaine addict is not an attractive sight).

Things finally go sour for the film, and for Jung in the last act. George bounces in and out of prison, alienating the only person he truly cares for, his young daughter. The thought of her is Jung's motivation for trying to go straight. But like Michael Corleone in Godfather III, they keep pulling him back in. The film wants us to see that the real tragedy is that Jung's life of crime cost him the love of his only child. But what about the tragedy created by Jung's enterprise -- and the fruitless war carried out to try and stop it? What about the country left in ruins by his personal ambition? The movie offers few insights when it comes to the big picture. (c) Copyright 2001