VIDEO DISAPPEARING ACTS DEPP, PEARCE LOSE THEMSELVES IN THEIR PARTS IN 'BLOW,' 'MEMENTO'.

At first, two films just out on video and DVD wouldn't seem to have much in common.

But ``Blow,'' which is about George Jung, a real-life drug dealer who helped establish the cocaine trade in the United States in the 1970s, and ``Memento,'' which is about a revenge-minded insurance investigator who forgets what he did each day once he goes to sleep, both have lead actors who don't get enough credit.

So let us praise Johnny Depp and Guy Pearce.

As Jung, Depp makes the guy seem almost sympathetic - though the real misery that the drug dealer caused by bringing tons of cocaine into the country ultimately negates any positive feelings you might have toward him. And that's part of the problem with ``Blow.'' Directed by Ted Demme (``The Life''), the film is a rags-to-riches story of Jung's rise and then fall in the cocaine trade. Along the way, we're treated to a glitzy, pop-oriented cruise through the '70s and '80s.

But before that, we see Jung growing up in a working-class New England family, his fractured relationship with his mother (Rachel Griffith), his fear of being poor after his dad (Ray Liotta) goes bankrupt. All of this, ostensibly, is meant to give us some understanding and somehow excuse a life of crime. Demme may have been trying to take the morality out of the story, giving us a ``Godfather''-like look at the drug culture, but he's no Francis Ford Coppola. Jung was just a hustler who went big-time by hooking up with Colombian drug lords, and Demme's direction is hip-hop pastiche - a little sample here, familiar pop song there - that lacks any real insight and fails to move beyond its story.

Later, when Jung has a daughter by Mirtha (Penelope Cruz), his druggie wife, he tries to clean up his act, but in the end he loses the girl, too. And the regret he feels is offset by the sense that he deserves his plight and more.

But Depp, as I said, makes the guy seem almost sympathetic, and his gifts as an actor rescue the film.

There seem to be two reasons that Depp isn't recognized as one of our better film actors. First, it's that photogenic face. It's hard for the camera not to love that bone structure, even though Depp has tried to make us ignore it with some offbeat roles in films such as ``Sleepy Hollow,'' ``Edward Scissorhands,'' ``Benny & Joon,'' ``Ed Wood,'' ``Don Juan De Marco'' and ``Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.''

And that points to reason two: that Depp - apparently trying not to be just a pretty face - immerses himself so much in the role that you can forget just how good he is. In ``Blow,'' he gives us enough of a glimpse of the melancholy at the root of Jung's life that it grounds the story - even as it's being told as if in a drug-induced haze. It's something that he manages to convey with his acting long before makeup takes over at the end of the story, when Jung is serving a long sentence in federal prison.

As one of New Line's Infinifilms, the ``Blow'' video has a number of interesting extras, including two documentaries - one on cocaine's impact on Colombia and another on addiction, plus interviews with the real Jung and commentary by Demme.

Even being cast with Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Russell Crowe, Pearce made a splash in the 1997 film ``L.A. Confidential.'' Since then, he hadn't made much of an impact on American screens until ``Memento.'' (A 1999 film about cannibalism, ``Ravenous,'' was his only film to get much play in the U.S.) Pearce will be starring in DreamWorks' big holiday picture ``The Time Machine,'' however, and he's also starring in another big-budget film, ``The Count of Monte Cristo.'' But after that, there are two smaller Australian films scheduled - apparently in keeping with Pearce's preference to pretty much shun Hollywood, which explains why he doesn't get much press.

But Pearce is like Depp in that he seems to immerse himself in a role. (He played the squeaky-clean detective in ``L.A. Confidential'' and a drag queen in ``The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,'' both convincingly and with equal ease.)

In ``Memento,'' he plays Leonard Shelby, a man who ``can't make new memories.'' Everything stopped for him the night his wife was murdered, and now he's out for revenge. The problem is he can't remember anything, and each day he awakens to a new world. So he writes down what he learns on scraps of paper or as tattoos on his body as he tries to piece together who is responsible for his wife's murder. Along the way, he encounters several people he is constantly forced to deal with anew, never sure if they're friend or foe.

``Memento'' then becomes this complicated - but fascinating - jigsaw puzzle, a film noir with a metaphysical twist. But the film relies heavily on Pearce's performance to make it work, and the Australian actor is brilliant at walking the difficult line of being a man who can be utterly convinced he is right one minute and utterly clueless the next.

It there is a film that you should have a DVD player for, it's this one. Being able to skip around makes it easier to put the plot pieces together. The DVD doesn't offer much else, however, except an interview with the director. Still it's a lot easier than rewinding.

``Blow'' (New Line) is $26.98 on DVD and priced for rental on VHS. ``Memento'' (Columbia) is $24.95 on DVD and priced for rental on VHS.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1) Johnny Depp plays real-life drug kingpin George Jung in ``Blow,'' now on video and DVD.

(2) Evidence mounts up - and then vanishes - as Guy Pearce seeks his wife's killer in ``Memento.''