Blow | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Ted Demme |
Produced by | Ted Demme Joel Stillerman Denis Leary |
Written by |
David McKenna Nick Cassavetes |
Starring |
Johnny Depp Jordi Mollà Penélope Cruz Ray Liotta Paul Reubens Franka Potente Rachel Griffiths |
Music by | Graeme Revell |
Cinematography | Ellen Kuras |
Edited by | Kevin Tent |
Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release date
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April 6, 2001 |
Running time
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124 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $53 million |
Box office | $83.3 million |
Blow is a 2001 American biographical crime film about the American cocaine smuggler George Jung, directed by Ted Demme. David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes adapted Bruce Porter's 1993 book Blow: How a Small Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellín Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All for the screenplay. It is based on the real-life stories of George Jung, Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder Rivas (portrayed in the film as Diego Delgado), and the Medellín Cartel. The film's title comes from a slang term for cocaine.
Blow was the final theatrical film directed by Demme to be released in his lifetime.
The film opens to a young George Jung (Johnny Depp) and his parents Fred (Ray Liotta) and Ermine (Rachel Griffiths) of Weymouth, Massachusetts. When George is ten years old, Fred files for bankruptcy and loses everything, but tries to make George realize that money is not important.
As an adult, George (Johnny Depp) moves to Los Angeles with his friend "Tuna" (Ethan Suplee); they meet Barbara (Franka Potente), an airline stewardess, who introduces them to Derek Foreal (Paul Reubens), a marijuana dealer. With Derek's help, George and Tuna make a lot of money. Kevin Dulli (Max Perlich), a college student back in Boston, visits them and tells them of the enormous market—and demand—for pot in Boston. With Barbara's help, they start bringing the drugs to Boston.