Blow
Metascore
52 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 34 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 19 out of 34
  3. Negative: 3 out of 34
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  1. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    100
    Scorches the screen with a badass bravado all its own. Smart, sexy, funny and dangerous this high-wire act is a movie and a half.
  2. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    88
    Rarely since the tale of the Corleones has a movie presented such a compelling, sympathetic portrait of a criminal lowlife.
    All this critic's reviews
  3. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    83
    Melancholy, haunting and riveting true-crime saga.
  4. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    75
    Consistently compelling without being truly memorable.
  5. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    75
    Carries little in the way of passion or revelatory charge.
  6. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    70
    Seductive, funny, whip-smart and ultimately tragic.
  7. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    70
    Funny, immediately and consistently engaging, and -- well done on almost every level.
  8. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: Gregory Weinkauf
    70
    It's basically your above-average nice drug movie.
  9. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    63
    Take away the drugs, and this is the story of a boring life in wholesale.
  10. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    63
    It's a real disappointment: too hasty, too scattered and superficial, and, in the end, disappointingly sappy and sentimental.
    All this critic's reviews
  11. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    63
    Ends up a portrait through a rose-colored lens, turning a social parasite into a Greek hero.
  12. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    63
    Too soft on its lead character and too willing to chalk up America's drug appetites to the times-that-were-a-changin' in the '60s.
    All this critic's reviews
  13. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    60
    Hopefully ambitious yet hopelessly lightweight.
  14. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    60
    Respectable but unmemorable end result may suffer from comparison with the similarly themed, albeit differently angled, “Traffic.”
  15. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    50
    Inherently stale.
  16. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    50
    A facile treatment of a complicated subject.
    All this critic's reviews
  17. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    50
    The real problem is that there's nothing to George but the movie's props.
    All this critic's reviews
  18. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Edward Guthmann
    50
    It's an honest portrayal, but it leaves the audience stranded, without the emotional hook of a character we can care about.
  19. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    50
    Blew its chance to be an epic drug opera. It's only nostril-deep.
    All this critic's reviews
  20. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    50
    The acting is solid.
  21. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    50
    A watchable mediocrity at best.
    All this critic's reviews
  22. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    50
    Depp aside, the movie is higher on style than it is on substance.
  23. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    50
    It downplays the effects of George's drug trafficking, not so much on himself and his cronies as on the wrecked lives of the generation of customers we never get to see.
  24. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: John Patterson
    50
    If as much thought had been expended on character and consequences as was lavished on bell-bottom diameters, collar widths and soundtrack selection, Blow might have been a richer, more intelligent experience, and much more Demme's movie than a carbon copy of other people's.
  25. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    50
    This single cautionary tale of how drug innocence gives way to woeful, hung-over experience proves to be way too predictable to effectively caution or even involve anyone.
  26. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    50
    Depp's witty, spare performance gives the picture a poignancy -- a depth of feeling, if you'll allow the pun -- that Mr. Demme's hectic direction and the hurried script by David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes don't quite earn.
  27. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    50
    When George’s fortunes start to go from bad to worse, so does the movie.
    All this critic's reviews
  28. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    50
    A textbook case of a film that's befuddled by its subject.
    All this critic's reviews
  29. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Reece Pendleton
    50
    Only Depp and Ray Liotta (as Jung's father) manage to animate this tired formula.
  30. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    40
    We've just been to this party before and we know how it ends, again and again and again.
  31. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    40
    If any element takes us through the movie, it's him (Depp).
  32. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    30
    This is an extraordinary -- and unfathomable -- piece of whitewashing: a true snow job.
  33. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    30
    Blow works for a scene or two, then stalls.
    All this critic's reviews
  34. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    30
    You can't make an epic about a mouse.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.6 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 64 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 22
  3. Negative: 1 out of 22
  1. Compi24
    8
    It's got this weird kind of piecemeal/miniseries structure to it but, as a genuine study of human drama and fallibility, "Blow" comfortably eases by thanks to a damn fine performance from Johnny Depp.… Full Review »
  2. FadeBlack
    8
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. On one hand, Blow is a interesting film about the drug industry with solid performances and a fairly entertaining plot surprisingly enough, based on real events.

    But beneath the surface, it is also holds a strikingly important message about the things in life that seem important, the desires that most people pursue...and how at the end, no matter how successful they are in attaining them, it means nothing if they consume one's life.

    The film has a variety of different characters, but the only real morally decent guy is George's father (Ray Liotta).

    At the beginning of the film, he tells his young son something very important: "Money isn't real, George. It doesn't matter. It only seems like it does."

    It is a message that seems to register with the young George somewhere deep down, yet he spends his entire adult life running in the opposite direction as far as he can. The adult George (Johnny Depp) starts of relatively small he gets into the weed business to make a little bit of money, enough to live on and step by step, bit by bit, he edges himself onto bigger and bigger deals, gets busted and goes to prison, moves on to cocaine, dealing with killers, putting himself in great risk money becomes everything that his life revolved around.

    I am sure that somewhere in his mind he might have rationalized it, convinced himself in some philosophy that made his lifestyle ok yet it the end, all it brought him was ruin. The exact same thing happens with his wife Mirtha (Penelope Cruz). The young George is distances by how selfish and greedy his mother (Rachel Griffiths) is, and he can barely give her a hug on Christmas day. She openly admits she married George's father for money that she believed he had, only to find out that he had little. She is someone the young George doesn't want anything to do with yet he marries the exact same woman in Mirtha.

    At first, it is all sexy and exciting how George and Mirtha meet, how beautiful and classy she looks, how into him she is he thinks he has hit the jackpot and found the perfect woman. A match made in heaven until the money troubles come in and after years of marriage she reveals that all she really cares about is the fame and fortune that came with marrying George. Again, he must have rationalized it in his mind told himself she is not like his mother, that she is different, that they can make it work all delusions we force ourselves to believe because we cannot break free from the chains of the physical and the material. "Money isn't real, George. It doesn't matter. It only seems like it does." if only George had followed that advice, he would not have ended up an old broken down man in a prison dreaming of his daughter that never visits him. At the end, despite of all his mistakes, you can't help but feel truly sorry for George. No matter how much he allowed himself to be led astray, the one thing he cared about the most was his daughter.

    Of course, George's story is an extreme example of a cautionary tale. Many other people in society go on the same path but keep their riches seemingly for life, and establish successful families and relationships that are with them 'till the end. But as materially successful as that may seem, how much of an achievement is it, really? How much honor is there to get ahead in a fundamentally unjust and unfair world? Who is the real winner someone who plays the game and wins, or someone who refuses to play at all and transcends the material and the physical living humbly and within his means?

    George's father, although no human is perfect, seemed to have the most peace at the end. And we can leave it at that.

    A movie definitely worth seeing.    … Full Review »
  3. cwp62492
    10
    One of those movies where you will laugh your ass off at parts, but want to cry at others. Overall very good. Depp, as usual when playing a drugged out crazy guy, delivers an excellent performance.… Full Review »
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