Watching Terry Gilliam's 1998 film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson is, in 2022, a fraught experience.
For one, a viewer must contend with their views of star Johnny Depp, recently exposed in a high-profile domestic abuse case. Additionally, director Terry Gilliam has, in recent years, said some notorious things in the press. In 2020, he called #MeToo a "witch-hunt," he once downplayed the crimes of Harvey Weinstein, and, all the way back in 2009, signed a petition pleading to exonerate Roman Polanski. This was all in addition to reports of Gilliam terrifying a young Sarah Polley on the set of "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen." Polley, however, has since given her blessing to enjoy the movie.
Additionally, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is -- by design -- incredibly difficult to watch. It's a noisy, chaotic film with two protagonists who are constantly zonked...
For one, a viewer must contend with their views of star Johnny Depp, recently exposed in a high-profile domestic abuse case. Additionally, director Terry Gilliam has, in recent years, said some notorious things in the press. In 2020, he called #MeToo a "witch-hunt," he once downplayed the crimes of Harvey Weinstein, and, all the way back in 2009, signed a petition pleading to exonerate Roman Polanski. This was all in addition to reports of Gilliam terrifying a young Sarah Polley on the set of "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen." Polley, however, has since given her blessing to enjoy the movie.
Additionally, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is -- by design -- incredibly difficult to watch. It's a noisy, chaotic film with two protagonists who are constantly zonked...
- 11/6/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 14 Nov 2013 - 06:19
The overlooked greats of the year 1998 come under the spotlight in our list of its 25 underappreciated movies...
Dominated as it was by the financial success of two giant killer asteroid movies, gross-out comedy hit There's Something About Mary and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, 1998 proved to be an extraordinary year for cinema.
Okay, so history doesn't look back too fondly on Roland Emmerich's mishandled Godzilla remake, and Lethal Weapon 4 was hardly the best buddy-cop flick ever made, despite its handsome profit. But search outside the top-10 grossing films of that year, and you'll find all kinds of spectacular modern classics: Peter Weir's wonderful The Truman Show, John Frankenheimer's rock-solid thriller Ronin, and Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line.
Then there was The Big Lebowski, the Coen brothers' sublime comedy that has since become a deserved and oft-quoted cult favourite.
The overlooked greats of the year 1998 come under the spotlight in our list of its 25 underappreciated movies...
Dominated as it was by the financial success of two giant killer asteroid movies, gross-out comedy hit There's Something About Mary and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, 1998 proved to be an extraordinary year for cinema.
Okay, so history doesn't look back too fondly on Roland Emmerich's mishandled Godzilla remake, and Lethal Weapon 4 was hardly the best buddy-cop flick ever made, despite its handsome profit. But search outside the top-10 grossing films of that year, and you'll find all kinds of spectacular modern classics: Peter Weir's wonderful The Truman Show, John Frankenheimer's rock-solid thriller Ronin, and Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line.
Then there was The Big Lebowski, the Coen brothers' sublime comedy that has since become a deserved and oft-quoted cult favourite.
- 11/13/2013
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
Chicago – I know what you’re thinking: What do “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Mystic River” have in common? Nothing at all other than a Blu-ray release date of February 2nd, 2010. Oh, and they’re two films you should probably own if you have a Blu-ray player.
Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0
Johnny Depp and Terry Gilliam telling the story of Hunter S. Thompson’s drug-addled lunacy seemed like a match made in movie heaven when production of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” was first announced. Who better to grasp the stream-of-consciousness insanity of Thompson’s writing than a Monty Python member and who better to embody Thompson’s larger-than-life personality than one of the most fearless actors of his generation?
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was released on Blu-ray on February 2nd, 2010.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures Home Video
Perhaps it was those sky high expectations that led to...
Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0
Johnny Depp and Terry Gilliam telling the story of Hunter S. Thompson’s drug-addled lunacy seemed like a match made in movie heaven when production of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” was first announced. Who better to grasp the stream-of-consciousness insanity of Thompson’s writing than a Monty Python member and who better to embody Thompson’s larger-than-life personality than one of the most fearless actors of his generation?
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was released on Blu-ray on February 2nd, 2010.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures Home Video
Perhaps it was those sky high expectations that led to...
- 2/8/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
By Aaron Hillis
Lists are breezy reads, but there can be an unfortunate disposability to the data because arbitrarily numbered "Ten Best" somethings or "Five Things You Should Know About" whatevers literally demonstrate quantity's domination over quality. And now that I've sucked all the fun out of the room, here's a practical but otherwise unranked list of ten auteurist gems . nine of which are already on DVD . that deserve their layers of dust blown off. (Sorry, "Zero Effect" and "11 Harrowhouse," but the list dictates the rules!)
"One From the Heart" (1982)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The fires of over-ambition still smoldering in his belly after "Apocalypse Now," Francis Ford Coppola's follow-up was a decadent fiasco that bankrupted him, and might have seemed at the time as if the director had returned half-mad from the Filipino jungles. Epically staged on the Zoetrope studio lot, Coppola's hypertheatrical Vegas romance-cum-musical fantasy stars...
Lists are breezy reads, but there can be an unfortunate disposability to the data because arbitrarily numbered "Ten Best" somethings or "Five Things You Should Know About" whatevers literally demonstrate quantity's domination over quality. And now that I've sucked all the fun out of the room, here's a practical but otherwise unranked list of ten auteurist gems . nine of which are already on DVD . that deserve their layers of dust blown off. (Sorry, "Zero Effect" and "11 Harrowhouse," but the list dictates the rules!)
"One From the Heart" (1982)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The fires of over-ambition still smoldering in his belly after "Apocalypse Now," Francis Ford Coppola's follow-up was a decadent fiasco that bankrupted him, and might have seemed at the time as if the director had returned half-mad from the Filipino jungles. Epically staged on the Zoetrope studio lot, Coppola's hypertheatrical Vegas romance-cum-musical fantasy stars...
- 7/31/2008
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
Screened
CineVegas Film Festival, Las Vegas
Eighteen years in the making, Wayne Ewing's "Breakfast With Hunter" is an intimate verite portrait that honors its subject with fierce affection and respect.
Eschewing a talking-heads bio approach, the film assumes knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson's work but nevertheless serves as an incisive intro for the uninitiated. Among a cavalcade of luminaries, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and John Cusack make notable, decidedly non-glam appearances, clearly thrilled to be hanging out with the inventor and eminence grise of gonzo journalism.
As a friend, neighbor and colleague of Thompson, Ewing, whose television helming and DP credits include "Bill Moyers' Journal", "Frontline" and "Homicide", was afforded remarkable access.
The film- and DV-shot documentary had its world premiere June 21 as the closing-night selection of the CineVegas festival (with Thompson in attendance). It deserves further fest exposure and is a natural for docu-themed cable slots. The right distributor could parlay the writer's iconoclastic appeal into limited theatrical play for art house and college crowds.
Ewing centers on 1996-97, when Thompson was busy on three fronts: battling what he considered a political arrest in Aspen, Colo., on bogus DUI charges; making appearances at 25th anniversary celebrations of his 1971 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"; and, in the film's most compelling sequence, confronting creative obstacles to big-screen plans for that book, in the form of a profoundly misguided director and screenwriter.
During the round of 25th-anniversary tributes, those offering praise cover the political spectrum from P.J. O'Rourke to George McGovern, and Thompson's son, Juan, delivers a moving appreciation of his integrity and his place in American letters.
Reading Thompson's work to audiences, an amused Cusack, the gum-chewing, deadpan Depp and an exultant Roxanne Pulitzer present ample evidence of the author's moral clarity and the caustic humor and diamond-sharp prose with which he's raged against hypocrisy for more than three decades.
Here the soundtrack to those decades is replete with songs by Warren Zevon and the clink of ice in a tall glass of Chivas. The film's title refers to the prodigious all-nighters the director and other valiant stony warriors shared with Thompson, especially at Owl Farm, his "heavily fortified," peacock-friendly ranch near Aspen. There's a revealing glimpse of the friendship between Thompson and longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman when the artist visits the compound with an offering of rare Scotches and a startling revisionist assessment of his role in the author's work.
But the incident Ewing rightly puts center stage is the astounding meeting between Thompson and the team initially assigned to the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- scripter Tod Davies and helmer Alex Cox, whose outlaw sympathies ("Sid and Nancy", "Straight to Hell") might have made him seem the right choice for the project. (They both received screenwriting credit, along with others, on the Terry Gilliam-directed 1998 film.) The would-be collaboration implodes when the duo earnestly present a ham-fisted visual concept for a key section of the book, a passage that Thompson accurately calls "one of the best things I've ever written."
Second only to Cox and Davies' mind-boggling literalness is the obduracy with which they cling to their dumb idea in the face of Thompson's reasonable objections and rising anger. Their self-destruction is fascinating to behold; later, watching tape of the incident in Thompson's Chateau Marmont suite, Del Toro can only marvel at their unwillingness to bend, or at least shut up.
The scene that unfolds recalls another memorable cinema verite moment: Donovan's humiliation at Dylan's hands in "Don't Look Back". But this exchange draws its power not from any casually sadistic streak on Thompson's part but from his clearheaded defense of his work against clueless marauders. "Breakfast With Hunter" is a convincing exploration of why that work matters.
BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER
Wayne Ewing Films Inc and Gonzo International
Credits:
Director/writer/producer/director of photograpy/editor: Wayne Ewing
Executive producer: Andrew Ewing With: Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, John Cusack, Ralph Steadman, Juan Thompson, Jann Wenner, George Plimpton, Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Laila Nabulsi, Warren Zevon, Roxanne Pulitzer, George McGovern, Frank Mankiewicz, Douglas Brinkley, PJ O'Rourke, Lyle Lovett, Matt Dillon
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
CineVegas Film Festival, Las Vegas
Eighteen years in the making, Wayne Ewing's "Breakfast With Hunter" is an intimate verite portrait that honors its subject with fierce affection and respect.
Eschewing a talking-heads bio approach, the film assumes knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson's work but nevertheless serves as an incisive intro for the uninitiated. Among a cavalcade of luminaries, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and John Cusack make notable, decidedly non-glam appearances, clearly thrilled to be hanging out with the inventor and eminence grise of gonzo journalism.
As a friend, neighbor and colleague of Thompson, Ewing, whose television helming and DP credits include "Bill Moyers' Journal", "Frontline" and "Homicide", was afforded remarkable access.
The film- and DV-shot documentary had its world premiere June 21 as the closing-night selection of the CineVegas festival (with Thompson in attendance). It deserves further fest exposure and is a natural for docu-themed cable slots. The right distributor could parlay the writer's iconoclastic appeal into limited theatrical play for art house and college crowds.
Ewing centers on 1996-97, when Thompson was busy on three fronts: battling what he considered a political arrest in Aspen, Colo., on bogus DUI charges; making appearances at 25th anniversary celebrations of his 1971 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"; and, in the film's most compelling sequence, confronting creative obstacles to big-screen plans for that book, in the form of a profoundly misguided director and screenwriter.
During the round of 25th-anniversary tributes, those offering praise cover the political spectrum from P.J. O'Rourke to George McGovern, and Thompson's son, Juan, delivers a moving appreciation of his integrity and his place in American letters.
Reading Thompson's work to audiences, an amused Cusack, the gum-chewing, deadpan Depp and an exultant Roxanne Pulitzer present ample evidence of the author's moral clarity and the caustic humor and diamond-sharp prose with which he's raged against hypocrisy for more than three decades.
Here the soundtrack to those decades is replete with songs by Warren Zevon and the clink of ice in a tall glass of Chivas. The film's title refers to the prodigious all-nighters the director and other valiant stony warriors shared with Thompson, especially at Owl Farm, his "heavily fortified," peacock-friendly ranch near Aspen. There's a revealing glimpse of the friendship between Thompson and longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman when the artist visits the compound with an offering of rare Scotches and a startling revisionist assessment of his role in the author's work.
But the incident Ewing rightly puts center stage is the astounding meeting between Thompson and the team initially assigned to the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- scripter Tod Davies and helmer Alex Cox, whose outlaw sympathies ("Sid and Nancy", "Straight to Hell") might have made him seem the right choice for the project. (They both received screenwriting credit, along with others, on the Terry Gilliam-directed 1998 film.) The would-be collaboration implodes when the duo earnestly present a ham-fisted visual concept for a key section of the book, a passage that Thompson accurately calls "one of the best things I've ever written."
Second only to Cox and Davies' mind-boggling literalness is the obduracy with which they cling to their dumb idea in the face of Thompson's reasonable objections and rising anger. Their self-destruction is fascinating to behold; later, watching tape of the incident in Thompson's Chateau Marmont suite, Del Toro can only marvel at their unwillingness to bend, or at least shut up.
The scene that unfolds recalls another memorable cinema verite moment: Donovan's humiliation at Dylan's hands in "Don't Look Back". But this exchange draws its power not from any casually sadistic streak on Thompson's part but from his clearheaded defense of his work against clueless marauders. "Breakfast With Hunter" is a convincing exploration of why that work matters.
BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER
Wayne Ewing Films Inc and Gonzo International
Credits:
Director/writer/producer/director of photograpy/editor: Wayne Ewing
Executive producer: Andrew Ewing With: Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, John Cusack, Ralph Steadman, Juan Thompson, Jann Wenner, George Plimpton, Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Laila Nabulsi, Warren Zevon, Roxanne Pulitzer, George McGovern, Frank Mankiewicz, Douglas Brinkley, PJ O'Rourke, Lyle Lovett, Matt Dillon
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Screened
CineVegas Film Festival, Las Vegas
Eighteen years in the making, Wayne Ewing's "Breakfast With Hunter" is an intimate verite portrait that honors its subject with fierce affection and respect.
Eschewing a talking-heads bio approach, the film assumes knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson's work but nevertheless serves as an incisive intro for the uninitiated. Among a cavalcade of luminaries, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and John Cusack make notable, decidedly non-glam appearances, clearly thrilled to be hanging out with the inventor and eminence grise of gonzo journalism.
As a friend, neighbor and colleague of Thompson, Ewing, whose television helming and DP credits include "Bill Moyers' Journal", "Frontline" and "Homicide", was afforded remarkable access.
The film- and DV-shot documentary had its world premiere June 21 as the closing-night selection of the CineVegas festival (with Thompson in attendance). It deserves further fest exposure and is a natural for docu-themed cable slots. The right distributor could parlay the writer's iconoclastic appeal into limited theatrical play for art house and college crowds.
Ewing centers on 1996-97, when Thompson was busy on three fronts: battling what he considered a political arrest in Aspen, Colo., on bogus DUI charges; making appearances at 25th anniversary celebrations of his 1971 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"; and, in the film's most compelling sequence, confronting creative obstacles to big-screen plans for that book, in the form of a profoundly misguided director and screenwriter.
During the round of 25th-anniversary tributes, those offering praise cover the political spectrum from P.J. O'Rourke to George McGovern, and Thompson's son, Juan, delivers a moving appreciation of his integrity and his place in American letters.
Reading Thompson's work to audiences, an amused Cusack, the gum-chewing, deadpan Depp and an exultant Roxanne Pulitzer present ample evidence of the author's moral clarity and the caustic humor and diamond-sharp prose with which he's raged against hypocrisy for more than three decades.
Here the soundtrack to those decades is replete with songs by Warren Zevon and the clink of ice in a tall glass of Chivas. The film's title refers to the prodigious all-nighters the director and other valiant stony warriors shared with Thompson, especially at Owl Farm, his "heavily fortified," peacock-friendly ranch near Aspen. There's a revealing glimpse of the friendship between Thompson and longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman when the artist visits the compound with an offering of rare Scotches and a startling revisionist assessment of his role in the author's work.
But the incident Ewing rightly puts center stage is the astounding meeting between Thompson and the team initially assigned to the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- scripter Tod Davies and helmer Alex Cox, whose outlaw sympathies ("Sid and Nancy", "Straight to Hell") might have made him seem the right choice for the project. (They both received screenwriting credit, along with others, on the Terry Gilliam-directed 1998 film.) The would-be collaboration implodes when the duo earnestly present a ham-fisted visual concept for a key section of the book, a passage that Thompson accurately calls "one of the best things I've ever written."
Second only to Cox and Davies' mind-boggling literalness is the obduracy with which they cling to their dumb idea in the face of Thompson's reasonable objections and rising anger. Their self-destruction is fascinating to behold; later, watching tape of the incident in Thompson's Chateau Marmont suite, Del Toro can only marvel at their unwillingness to bend, or at least shut up.
The scene that unfolds recalls another memorable cinema verite moment: Donovan's humiliation at Dylan's hands in "Don't Look Back". But this exchange draws its power not from any casually sadistic streak on Thompson's part but from his clearheaded defense of his work against clueless marauders. "Breakfast With Hunter" is a convincing exploration of why that work matters.
BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER
Wayne Ewing Films Inc and Gonzo International
Credits:
Director/writer/producer/director of photograpy/editor: Wayne Ewing
Executive producer: Andrew Ewing With: Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, John Cusack, Ralph Steadman, Juan Thompson, Jann Wenner, George Plimpton, Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Laila Nabulsi, Warren Zevon, Roxanne Pulitzer, George McGovern, Frank Mankiewicz, Douglas Brinkley, PJ O'Rourke, Lyle Lovett, Matt Dillon
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
CineVegas Film Festival, Las Vegas
Eighteen years in the making, Wayne Ewing's "Breakfast With Hunter" is an intimate verite portrait that honors its subject with fierce affection and respect.
Eschewing a talking-heads bio approach, the film assumes knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson's work but nevertheless serves as an incisive intro for the uninitiated. Among a cavalcade of luminaries, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and John Cusack make notable, decidedly non-glam appearances, clearly thrilled to be hanging out with the inventor and eminence grise of gonzo journalism.
As a friend, neighbor and colleague of Thompson, Ewing, whose television helming and DP credits include "Bill Moyers' Journal", "Frontline" and "Homicide", was afforded remarkable access.
The film- and DV-shot documentary had its world premiere June 21 as the closing-night selection of the CineVegas festival (with Thompson in attendance). It deserves further fest exposure and is a natural for docu-themed cable slots. The right distributor could parlay the writer's iconoclastic appeal into limited theatrical play for art house and college crowds.
Ewing centers on 1996-97, when Thompson was busy on three fronts: battling what he considered a political arrest in Aspen, Colo., on bogus DUI charges; making appearances at 25th anniversary celebrations of his 1971 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"; and, in the film's most compelling sequence, confronting creative obstacles to big-screen plans for that book, in the form of a profoundly misguided director and screenwriter.
During the round of 25th-anniversary tributes, those offering praise cover the political spectrum from P.J. O'Rourke to George McGovern, and Thompson's son, Juan, delivers a moving appreciation of his integrity and his place in American letters.
Reading Thompson's work to audiences, an amused Cusack, the gum-chewing, deadpan Depp and an exultant Roxanne Pulitzer present ample evidence of the author's moral clarity and the caustic humor and diamond-sharp prose with which he's raged against hypocrisy for more than three decades.
Here the soundtrack to those decades is replete with songs by Warren Zevon and the clink of ice in a tall glass of Chivas. The film's title refers to the prodigious all-nighters the director and other valiant stony warriors shared with Thompson, especially at Owl Farm, his "heavily fortified," peacock-friendly ranch near Aspen. There's a revealing glimpse of the friendship between Thompson and longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman when the artist visits the compound with an offering of rare Scotches and a startling revisionist assessment of his role in the author's work.
But the incident Ewing rightly puts center stage is the astounding meeting between Thompson and the team initially assigned to the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- scripter Tod Davies and helmer Alex Cox, whose outlaw sympathies ("Sid and Nancy", "Straight to Hell") might have made him seem the right choice for the project. (They both received screenwriting credit, along with others, on the Terry Gilliam-directed 1998 film.) The would-be collaboration implodes when the duo earnestly present a ham-fisted visual concept for a key section of the book, a passage that Thompson accurately calls "one of the best things I've ever written."
Second only to Cox and Davies' mind-boggling literalness is the obduracy with which they cling to their dumb idea in the face of Thompson's reasonable objections and rising anger. Their self-destruction is fascinating to behold; later, watching tape of the incident in Thompson's Chateau Marmont suite, Del Toro can only marvel at their unwillingness to bend, or at least shut up.
The scene that unfolds recalls another memorable cinema verite moment: Donovan's humiliation at Dylan's hands in "Don't Look Back". But this exchange draws its power not from any casually sadistic streak on Thompson's part but from his clearheaded defense of his work against clueless marauders. "Breakfast With Hunter" is a convincing exploration of why that work matters.
BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER
Wayne Ewing Films Inc and Gonzo International
Credits:
Director/writer/producer/director of photograpy/editor: Wayne Ewing
Executive producer: Andrew Ewing With: Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, John Cusack, Ralph Steadman, Juan Thompson, Jann Wenner, George Plimpton, Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Laila Nabulsi, Warren Zevon, Roxanne Pulitzer, George McGovern, Frank Mankiewicz, Douglas Brinkley, PJ O'Rourke, Lyle Lovett, Matt Dillon
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Gonzo journalism has deteriorated into bozo cinema in Universal's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". A dunderheadedly inane adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's searing Rolling Stone article published 27 years ago and expanded into a book, the flaccid film is a goon-show version of Thompson's commentary on the craziness of the American Dream.
Nostalgia-crazed baby boomers who remember being glazed and grazed by Thompson's writings way back when will be sorely jilted by this simplistic reduction of the writer's work and experiences to bald-faced buffoonery.
In the slapstick cinematic, Johnny Depp stars as Dr. Thompson, the era's most flamboyant, outrageous journalist whose combative political pronouncements and incendiary volleys against the reigning establishment stoked countercultural fires then burning in college youth. As celebrated and wasted as a lead guitarist, Thompson was known as much for his drug-gorging persona as his colorful, inflammatory writings.
For studio execs too wet-behind-the-ears to remember Thompson's heyday, "Fear and Loathing" was based on Thompson's excursion to Las Vegas, ostensibly to cover an off-road race for Sports Illustrated. As per his custom, he was accompanied by his lawyer, Oscar Zetz Acosta, an activist and fellow substance abuser along for moral and legal support.
For Thompson, Las Vegas was a vast moral, ethical pit -- a microcosm of the warping of America -- and his writings were less about the road race and more blunt broadsides against establishment culture. That his comments and insights were fired and fueled by every known form of illegal substance was part of his legend. Unfortunately, in this lazy distillation, drunkenness and dislocation are the main focus and -- even dopier -- it's played out as variety-show slapstick.
Depp's reeling performance as the addled, brilliant journalist recalls Red Skelton's Clem Kadiddlehopper, when the popular comedian used to rubber-knee his way around stage with silly grins, flailing his arms to latch onto something. In short, "Fear and Loathing" has been dummied down to a "Beer and Foaming" level -- it's merely a one-joke show as Depp and Benicio Del Toro, as the lawyer sidekick, careen from casino to casino.
On a purely comic level, the film doesn't even achieve the loopy hilarity of "Where the Buffalo Roam", in which Bill Murray essayed the antic, gonzo journalist and every now and then captured his peculiar genius. (Remember that great scene where he had the Hispanic maids running around with the couch cushions simulating the Dallas Cowboys' flex defense?)
Unfortunately, Terry Gilliam's encapsulation is merely an uninspired series of stumblebum scenes as Depp and Del Toro crash and slide through the neon nether world of Las Vegas. As befits a project with four credited screenwriters, the story shows its seams. We note some Alex Cox influences, mainly in scenes of vomit and physical breakdown a la "Sid & Nancy," which ring true but are entirely counter to the slap-happy rest of the film.
Visually, "Fear and Loathing" is a disaster. Thompson's delirium and genius, including fits of drug-induced dementia and hallucinations, is visualized in the most banal terms. Lounge lizards and all sorts of reptilian imagery appear, but they seem to have landed straight from a cereal box or theme park, so humdrum and pedestrian are the designs. If Thompson sees this movie, we hope he'll have a couple bottles of Wild Turkey on hand to wash it down.
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
Universal Pictures
CREDITS:
Producers: Laila Nabulsi, Patrick Cassavetti, Stephen Nemeth
Director: Terry Gilliam
Screenwriters: Terry Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, Tod Davies, Alex Cox
Based on the book by: Hunter S. Thompson
Executive producers: Harold Bronson, Richard Foos
Director of photography: Nicola Pecorini
Production designer: Alex McDowell
Editor : Lesley Walker
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Co-producer: Elliot Lewis Rosenblatt
Casting: Margery Simkin
Lounge Lizards designed by: Rob Bottin
Sound mixer: Jay Meagher
CAST:
Raoul Duke: Johnny Depp
Dr. Gonzo: Benicio Del Toro
Hitchhiker: Tobey Maguire
Uniformed Dwarf: Michael Lee Gogin
Car Rental Agent (Los Angeles): Larry Cedar
Parking Attendant: Brian LeBaron
Reservations Clerk: Katherine Helmond
Running time: 123 minutes...
Nostalgia-crazed baby boomers who remember being glazed and grazed by Thompson's writings way back when will be sorely jilted by this simplistic reduction of the writer's work and experiences to bald-faced buffoonery.
In the slapstick cinematic, Johnny Depp stars as Dr. Thompson, the era's most flamboyant, outrageous journalist whose combative political pronouncements and incendiary volleys against the reigning establishment stoked countercultural fires then burning in college youth. As celebrated and wasted as a lead guitarist, Thompson was known as much for his drug-gorging persona as his colorful, inflammatory writings.
For studio execs too wet-behind-the-ears to remember Thompson's heyday, "Fear and Loathing" was based on Thompson's excursion to Las Vegas, ostensibly to cover an off-road race for Sports Illustrated. As per his custom, he was accompanied by his lawyer, Oscar Zetz Acosta, an activist and fellow substance abuser along for moral and legal support.
For Thompson, Las Vegas was a vast moral, ethical pit -- a microcosm of the warping of America -- and his writings were less about the road race and more blunt broadsides against establishment culture. That his comments and insights were fired and fueled by every known form of illegal substance was part of his legend. Unfortunately, in this lazy distillation, drunkenness and dislocation are the main focus and -- even dopier -- it's played out as variety-show slapstick.
Depp's reeling performance as the addled, brilliant journalist recalls Red Skelton's Clem Kadiddlehopper, when the popular comedian used to rubber-knee his way around stage with silly grins, flailing his arms to latch onto something. In short, "Fear and Loathing" has been dummied down to a "Beer and Foaming" level -- it's merely a one-joke show as Depp and Benicio Del Toro, as the lawyer sidekick, careen from casino to casino.
On a purely comic level, the film doesn't even achieve the loopy hilarity of "Where the Buffalo Roam", in which Bill Murray essayed the antic, gonzo journalist and every now and then captured his peculiar genius. (Remember that great scene where he had the Hispanic maids running around with the couch cushions simulating the Dallas Cowboys' flex defense?)
Unfortunately, Terry Gilliam's encapsulation is merely an uninspired series of stumblebum scenes as Depp and Del Toro crash and slide through the neon nether world of Las Vegas. As befits a project with four credited screenwriters, the story shows its seams. We note some Alex Cox influences, mainly in scenes of vomit and physical breakdown a la "Sid & Nancy," which ring true but are entirely counter to the slap-happy rest of the film.
Visually, "Fear and Loathing" is a disaster. Thompson's delirium and genius, including fits of drug-induced dementia and hallucinations, is visualized in the most banal terms. Lounge lizards and all sorts of reptilian imagery appear, but they seem to have landed straight from a cereal box or theme park, so humdrum and pedestrian are the designs. If Thompson sees this movie, we hope he'll have a couple bottles of Wild Turkey on hand to wash it down.
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
Universal Pictures
CREDITS:
Producers: Laila Nabulsi, Patrick Cassavetti, Stephen Nemeth
Director: Terry Gilliam
Screenwriters: Terry Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, Tod Davies, Alex Cox
Based on the book by: Hunter S. Thompson
Executive producers: Harold Bronson, Richard Foos
Director of photography: Nicola Pecorini
Production designer: Alex McDowell
Editor : Lesley Walker
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Co-producer: Elliot Lewis Rosenblatt
Casting: Margery Simkin
Lounge Lizards designed by: Rob Bottin
Sound mixer: Jay Meagher
CAST:
Raoul Duke: Johnny Depp
Dr. Gonzo: Benicio Del Toro
Hitchhiker: Tobey Maguire
Uniformed Dwarf: Michael Lee Gogin
Car Rental Agent (Los Angeles): Larry Cedar
Parking Attendant: Brian LeBaron
Reservations Clerk: Katherine Helmond
Running time: 123 minutes...
- 5/18/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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