| George's dad (Ray Liotta,
playing a nice guy beautifully, as I knew he could), was a man with
values. He was devoid of personal greed, he always forgave his
shrewish wife and doted on his son (Johnny Depp, excellent as always).
Ol' dad never cheated anyone, was loyal to his friends and family, and
was constantly being taken advantage of by baser, greedier
people. He had a naïveté which led to a lifetime of financial
difficulties, because in the real cutthroat world, his integrity was
considered a fatal weakness by his unscrupulous friends. He build up a
solid little business with several trucks and several employees, but
he lost it all. When he hit bottom, he told his son that it wasn't
that important, that money wasn't what counted. His wife saw his
failure another way, and berated him constantly in front of their boy.
George the cocaine kingpin grew up in a different world, but ended up with a life almost identical to his dad's, just on a different scale. George, too, was honest in his dealings, was never greedy, never broke a promise, shared his good times with the people he cared for, rewarded anyone who did something nice for him. Like his dad, he was considered a naive babe in the woods by a string of less principled hard guys who gradually took more and more of his pie. Just like his dad, he built a nice little empire, then lost almost everything. When he hit rock bottom, there was a scene precisely parallel to one with his parents, in which George's wife berated him in front of their child for his lack of earning power. When George went down, he insisted that the feds get his ungrateful wife and daughter to safety, just as his own father had always taken back his ungrateful mother when she stormed out of the house and disappeared. Of course, after a family dinner with George's parents, George and his first love resolve never to end up like like the older couple. Sadly and ironically, George loses the girl (Lola Rennt's Franka Potente, speaking almost perfectly unaccented English) to cancer, then ends up reliving his father's life on a grander scale. Another evocative element of the movie was the transition of the market from marijuana to cocaine, which necessitated that George deal with gun-toting Colombians instead of peaceful hippies and small farmers. George looked back on the hippie marijuana days as the idyllic part of his life, filled with songfests on the beach, laid-back friends, and good vibes. I guess you probably know that most of us who lived through the 60's and 70's see it the same way. Marijuana represented our youth, sweet times, mellow vibes, peace and love and music. Cocaine represented everything that went wrong after the movement died. Greed, violence, edginess, material possessions, egocentrism. Watching George's transition in the film brought back a lot of forgotten memories for me. |
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| Another really good episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse? |
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George was ultimately betrayed by
everyone he ever trusted, but you should not be deceived into thinking
this was some sort of behavior endemic to the cocaine business. It's
just that in that particular business, the stakes are higher than in
just about any other business, and that factor magnifies the greed.
Furthermore, the business is illegal, so it attracts an element of
people comfortable outside the law, and that magnifies the danger. But
aside from the nature of his product, George was just another failed
small-time entrepreneur like his dad. And like his dad, he knew that
wasn't really important
He knew that his real failure was with his own daughter. George's dad was a success in the sense that he managed to transmit a certain set of values to his son, and the two of them developed a genuine bond and respect. George was not able to break through to this level of contact with his own child. George's daughter never did make peace with her dad, and has to this date never visited him in prison. He still has another 14 years of incarceration before he is set free. |
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