The first and foremost prerequisite for enjoying
this movie is having read the source material. You simply have got to be
acquainted with and appreciative of Hunter S. Thompson’s groundbreaking writing.
Nobody excoriated the current state of American political culture in the late
60’s and early 70’s like Thompson. He spoke to the entire generation of drug
taking rock and roll fanatics because he was one of them. Like so many of his
generation, the double-edged sword of drug advocacy cut both ways within his
life, opening avenues of incredible insight and hallucinatory description like
no other, but later leaving him creatively impotent and looking like a sad
reminder of past mistakes. In his glory though he captured the gestalt with
razor precision and spewed his acid-tinged bile across the page with delirious
abandon. It was both fun and enlightening to read of his drug-addled exploits
while he dismantled conservative orthodoxy with the skill of a surgeon. Because
his writing so vividly described states of chemical madness the desire to see
it depicted on screen has always been on the short list of generational
desires. Like other literary talismans of the era - Naked Lunch, Catch 22 or
Slaughterhouse Five - the
reality is often not what we saw in our mind’s eye. So to begin with, if you
are not already a fan of Thompson’s work, or sympathetic to the psychedelic
state of mind, turn back now! This is not some light-hearted comedic romp
through goofball party time. This is a dark and disturbing trip into the
politically charged wreckage left on the road leading out of the 1960s.
Based on the actual journalistic experiences of
Hunter S. Thompson (played with leering glee by Johnny Depp), Fear And Loathing finds him being
assigned to cover a motorcycle race in Las Vegas. He loads his crazed lawyer
drug buddy Dr. Gonzo (Benecio Del Toro with a 50-pound gut) into a Cadillac
convertible loaded with illegal drugs and guns and heads off across the desert
to take on Sin City. The assignment itself quickly becomes secondary to the
pair’s frenzied drug consumption and anti-social behavior. Much of their
behavior is the cornerstone of the book and movie’s reputation, and it is actually
not funny, but a super-exaggerated reaction to the hypocrisy and violence of
the Nixon era. Thompson reviled middle class values and the macho, police-state
culture of 20th century America. The ugliness of Nixon, Vietnam, the
war on drugs, and all that went with them was crystallized in Las Vegas and
Thompson and Dr. Gonzo can only respond by outdoing the ugliness. As a result, much
of the movie involves itself with the frenetic, disturbing, dangerous, often
disgusting behavior of drug addled adult delinquents. The drug excess does not
seem fun, but scary and sick-making; in fact Del Toro’s character spends much
of his screen time vomiting, twitching, oozing and writhing like a stuck pig.
This is not ribald humor it is savage satire. Thompson’s written word left many
with unease while simultaneously confirming, reflecting and glorifying their
youthful excesses - Gilliam’s movie does a woozy good job bringing the
hallucinations to life.
Acclaimed for his work with Monty Python and
then for his own movies like The Fisher King, Brazil, and 12 Monkeys, Terry Gilliam was clearly
acquainted with the original material and the lifestyle it portrayed. He does a
remarkable job smoothing the transition points between straight narrative and
insane states of drug madness, thus putting the viewer squarely behind the
rolling, red eyes of Thompson. He gets the most from his actors as well; Depp
and Del Toro are both extraordinary - Depp slithering around like an
anesthetically impaired iguana, mugging and dodging Del Toro’s wrecking ball of
a character, who veers between utterly menacing and completely disgusting. The
era was complex, ugly, and confusing, and Gilliam’s movie is equally so.
The biggest payoffs come in the few reflective
scenes, when Gilliam dials back the insanity for a moment and allows Depp’s
voiceover to revel in Thompson’s insightful prose. In one scene, Thompson
stares out a window and reflects on the changes he has seen since the mid 60’s
“We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, five years
later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west and with the
right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark, that place where the
wave finally broke and rolled back.” It is a poetic moment within the maelstrom
of lunacy that surrounds it, and that ultimately is the power of Hunter S.
Thompson’s writing and Gilliam’s movie - they both manage to find a kind of
beauty within the madness that surrounds them.
- Paul Epstein
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