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 The original cowriter and director of Fear and Loathing in
Las Vegas was Alex Cox, whose earlier film Sid and Nancy suggests that Cox
could have been a perfect match in filming Hunter S. Thompson's
psychotropic masterpiece of "gonzo" journalism.
Unfortunately Cox
departed due to the usual "creative differences," and this ill-fated adaptation
was thrust upon Terry Gilliam, whose formidable gifts as a visionary filmmaker
were squandered on the seemingly unfilmable elements of Thompson's ether-fogged
narrative.
The result is a one-joke
movie without the joke--an endless series of repetitive scenes involving
rampant substance abuse and the hallucinogenic fallout of a road trip that's
run crazily out of control. Johnny Depp plays Thompson's alter ego, "gonzo"
journalist Raoul Duke, and Benicio Del Toro is his sidekick and so-called
lawyer Dr. Gonzo. During the course of a
trip to Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, they ingest a veritable chemistry
set of drugs, and Gilliam does his best to show us the hallucinatory state of
their zonked-out minds. This allows for some dazzling imagery and the rampant
humor of stumbling buffoons, and the mumbling performances of Depp and Del Toro
wholeheartedly embrace the tripped-out, paranoid lunacy of Thompson's
celebrated book. But over two hours of this insanity tends to grate on the
nerves--like being the only sober guest at a party full of drunken idiots.
So while
Gilliam's film has achieved some cult status over the years, it's only because
Fear and Loathing is best enjoyed by those who are just as stoned as the
characters in the movie. The acting is pretty good considering the limited
scope they had. The score 5/10.
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