Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

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 may achieve some modest 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. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

 2 Hours of Nothing that Leads toward Nothing
I heard many people rave about this movie and then I watched it for myself and nothing ever happened really in the movie to me. It just seemed like 2 hours that lead nowhere. I'll watch anything once all the way through. Will never watch this bad movie again though. May 8, 2008

 "Too weird to live, to rare to die"
I wanted to buy the movie years ago--when it first came out--but I was too poor. Then I saw this box set in a store--I thought "I had to get it". I went home and bought it on Amazon and it is still fantastic-esp with behind the scenes. I would recommend this to anyone who loves weirdness. April 7, 2008

 People liked this why?
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Terry Gilliam, 1998)

When you get Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro in the same movie, and then get Terry Gilliam to direct it, you set yourself up for an exceptionally high-quality film. When that film is based on the writings of Hunter S. Thompson, you seen almost predestined for true greatness. Why is it, then, that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas fails on almost every level? Simple: because the insanely convoluted script (the story of the genesis of which is even more insanely convoluted than the script itself) takes Thompson's bitter, crazed, hysterically funny satire of American life and turns it into a generic, intensely stupid drug comedy. Granted, it's one with an incredible cast and a usually brilliant director, but make no mistake, 12 Monkeys or Brazil this ain't.

Depp plays Raoul Duke, Hunter Thompson's alter ego, while del Toro is Dr. Gonzo, Thompson's traveling companion and legal aid. (I had always assumed Dr. Gonzo to be based on cartoonist Ralph Steadman, thanks to Thompson's wonderful Kentucky Derby essay, in which Steadman behaves exactly like, well, Dr. Gonzo; the liner notes inform me that Gonzo is instead based on Oscar Zeta Acosta.) They roll into Vegas to cover the Mint 400, a dirt-bike race, and miss everything but the very start thanks to their heavy ingestion of controlled (and uncontrolled) substances. After losing Gonzo along the way, Duke flees Vegas, only to find out, when he calls Gonzo from a pay phone, that Gonzo has set him up another assignment-- covering a police convention focused on what we now know as the War on Drugs. There's a potential vein of humor here that cannot be overstated. Somehow, Gilliam's (and Tony Girsoni's and Tod Davies' and Alex Cox's) script misses it entirely.

It's impossible to watch Johnny Depp on a screen and not like him, but this is about as close as I've ever come. (Okay, it's tied with Secret Window.) And I've seen del Toro play drugged-out maniacs before and liked it a lot better. Usually, either of them can save even the most wooden script, though I admit even del Toro's remarkable talent couldn't help The Way of the Gun. So what went wrong here? I think a great deal of the problem is that Gilliam, in both the script (though how much of it he's actually responsible for we'll probably never know) and the direction, takes Thompson's source material far too seriously. (It's telling that the funniest line in the movie was actually ad-libbed by Gary Busey.) Fifteen minutes in, the movie has already become repetitive-- take drugs. Attempt to be funny. Take drugs. Attempt to be funny. Repeat ad nauseam, sometimes literally. All the ingredients are here for this to have been a great movie. There's a cast of thousands, many of whom are instantly recognizable (aside from the above, Harry Dean Stanton, Ellen Barkin, Verne Troyer, Tim Thomerson, Christina Ricci, Laraine Newman, Michael Jeter, Penn Jillette, Christopher Meloni, Lyle Lovett, and many others put in small appearances). There's a fantastic book at the heart of this. There's a brilliant director-- or, at least, one who used to be. (It's equally telling that after this, he went silent for a number of years; his next outing was the critical failure The Brothers Grimm, in 2005.) And yet somehow it all went horribly, horribly wrong. Amazon reviewer Jeff Shannon accurately predicted that the movie would "achieve some modest cult status over the years", but for the life of me, I can't understand why. *
March 25, 2008

 Defective Sound Mix on a Criterion DVD!!
On both 5.1 mixes on the DVD, the dolby digital and DTS, there are sound effects that are entirely missing from the movie. Look at points such as 5 minutes 20 seconds into the movie when Duke hits Dr. Gonzo with a beer can, and at 59 minutes 34 seconds when Duke throws coins at the valet, both the sound of the can hitting Dr. Gonzo, and the sound of the coins hitting the ground are entirely missing. It's like this throughout the movie. The dolby digital 2.0 mix is unaffected.
I've contacted criterion about this, and they have not responded. More people should write in about this, to have our discs replaced with those with correct mixes! March 16, 2008

 if you get it, you love it. if not, it will be the dumbest movie ever.
wow! this verson is packed full of Hunter S. Tompson, from the bbc film to the commentery, if you are fanatical of Hunter like me, or even just a fan the special fetures of this movie is a must for your hunter collection. as for the movie itself, forever a classic...
PS. hoked onn fonix diddent wurk soo wel fur me, soory... March 7, 2008

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