The question is: Do we care? The answer: sort of. David McKenna and Nick Cassavettes' script certainly yanks our heartstrings, dwelling far, far too long on Jung's emotional woes — his strained relationships with his parents and child. We see lil' George as a wee tyke, heading out on plumbing jobs with his blue-collar dad (Ray Liotta). We see him get all misty-eyed when his spoiled mother (Rachel Griffiths) runs off every few months because dad can't bring home enough bacon. We witness his first true love, the pot-happy stewardess Barbara (Run Lola Run's Franka Potente, playing a convincing California girl), drop dead of a brain tumor. We see him trying to be a good father to Kristina, his doe-eyed, mature-beyond-her-years daughter (Ashley Edner), agonizing for years about dashing her young dreams with his criminal past.

Wait a minute, isn't this a movie about drug smuggling? Demme often seems to forget this, fast-forwarding through what should be the most interesting parts — the tricks Jung used to sneak tens of thousands of kilos into the country, the complicated schemes used to launder his profits — in favor of downbeat scenes of domestic strife.

When the director does focus on the drug trade, though, Blow is brilliant. Playing like GoodFellas lite, it shows how Jung was responsible for almost single-handedly bringing the cocaine trade to America, but never fired a gun once. Fleeing boredom in suburban Boston, Jung started out small, slinging dimebags of pot on Los Angeles' beaches. But with the help of Derek Foreal (the superb Paul Reubens), flamboyant hairdresser and high-volume drug importer, Jung became the marijuana king of Southern California and even started sending dope back East with the help of college chum Kevin (Max Perlich).

But it wasn't enough. Not for Jung. Determined not to be "middled," he goes to Mexico in search of a direct wholesale source. After a hilarious sequence showing him and his friends asking the locals, "Donde esta pot?", Jung starts flying in his own shipments from Mexico aboard stolen planes, and then driving it cross-country in a dilapidated Winnebago.

One of these big hauls lands Jung his first stint in jail, but not before he jumps bail to be with the terminally ill Barbara during her last days. As luck would have it, Jung's cellmate is Diego Delgado (Jordi Molla), a spoiled scion of Colombia's upper crust. "Have you ever heard of cocaine?" he innocently asks his gringo roommate, who hasn't a clue about the stuff.

Three years later, Jung is all too familiar with the stuff. He and Diego are making bank smuggling kilos of Charlie, even getting the attention of Colombia's main exporter of foo-foo dust, Pablo Escobar (Three Kings' Cliff Curtis, in a scary cameo). In a photomontage reminiscent of Superfly, we see Jung wheeling and dealing his way into a $60 million fortune, which he not-so-wisely stores in Manuel Noriega's Bank of Panama.

His success catches the eye of Mirtha (Penelope Cruz), a jaded Colombian party girl. In a rapid-fire sequence of coked-out debauchery and kinky S&M scenes, the two fall madly in love and get hitched. It's a mutually beneficially deal: Jung gets acceptance among the Colombian aristocracy, including the notorious Ochoa brothers. Mirtha gets to lead a lifestyle of Caligulan opulence — not to mention a lifetime supply of nose candy.

But once Jung settles down, Blow starts going down — hill, that is. Watching the film's third act is like flipping channels between the brilliant Frontline special on the drug trade — which featured extensive interviews with Jung himself — and an episode of Miami Vice. George's California dream becomes a California nightmare, with Mirtha self-destructing in a blaze of powdered glory. In these scenes, Cruz isn't so much as a presence as a prop, a horribly dressed rail-thin mannequin wheeled into each scene screaming and shaking one of a series of horrible wigs around. Since we never get to know her character, the emotional impact of her decline doesn't have anywhere near the same impact as Sharon Stone's jejo-fueled implosion in Casino.

Depp fares better as Jung, nailing the smuggler's outer mannerisms and inner drive. Narrating in a subdued, dead-on Boston accent, the actor delivers his best performance since Donnie Brasco, giving us an appealing but amoral character who sincerely believes he's not doing anything wrong by bringing tons of narcotics into the country — even though the horrible legacy of his efforts is evident on every street corner. (Thanks for the crack, jack.) It's only in the latter scenes, when Depp is covered in layers of age makeup and fake flab, where the film's believability starts to slide.

Demme doesn't do Blow's credibilty any favors when he cuts to a still snapshot of the real-life Jung — a grizzled, hawkish man considerably less attractive than Depp — before the credits roll. This haunting image sparks another question: Wouldn't a documentary about Jung have been more interesting than this sappy, compressed dramatization? The answer: most definitely yes.