Blow

Ted Demme’s film gives the rise and fall of cocaine smuggler George Jung in Jung’s own telling, so every large number in it belongs to the narrator. The clearest case: the claim that 85 percent of the cocaine in late 1970s America passed through his hands. The week it opened, a reviewer already called that possible convict bragging. Denis Leary handed Demme Bruce Porter’s 1993 book and ended up among the producers. Demme refused the usual period playlist, wanting songs that were obscure but not too obscure. The Colombian partner appears not under his real name but as Diego Delgado, played by Jordi Mollà. The structural choice worth knowing: smuggling is mostly handled in montage, while the scenes with the father, played by Ray Liotta, and with the daughter run long. A closing card says Jung would not be eligible for parole before 2015 and that his daughter had never visited; he was released on 2 June 2014. Small mirrors were handed out in bars and at sporting events to promote it, which drew complaints. A good fit if you can watch a narrator build his own legend and accept that the weight sits on the father, not the crime. Not for anyone who wants a documented account of how the trade actually worked.