Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ½«
R, 119m. 1998
Cast & Credits: Johnny Depp (Raoul Duke), Benicio Del Toro (Dr. Gonzo), Ellen Barkin (Waitress), Gary Busey (Highway Patrolman), Cameron Diaz (Blond TV Reporter), Lyle Lovett (Musician at Matrix Club), Christina Ricci (Lucy), Harry Dean Stanton (Judge), Mark Harmon (Magazine Reporter), Katherine Helmond (Hotel Clerk), Tobey McGuire (Hitchhiker). Screenplay by Terry Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, Tod Davies and Alex Cox based on the book by Hunter S. Thompson. Directed by Terry Gilliam.
R, 119m. 1998
Cast & Credits: Johnny Depp (Raoul Duke), Benicio Del Toro (Dr. Gonzo), Ellen Barkin (Waitress), Gary Busey (Highway Patrolman), Cameron Diaz (Blond TV Reporter), Lyle Lovett (Musician at Matrix Club), Christina Ricci (Lucy), Harry Dean Stanton (Judge), Mark Harmon (Magazine Reporter), Katherine Helmond (Hotel Clerk), Tobey McGuire (Hitchhiker). Screenplay by Terry Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, Tod Davies and Alex Cox based on the book by Hunter S. Thompson. Directed by Terry Gilliam.
Most anyone who has had one too many drinks or did drugs probably remembers what the side effects were. I remember being at a party in college once where I downed probably five or more beers for the first time within a couple hours and noticed the room was spinning soon after. The effect is called a “buzz” and from what I can recall, that high lasted about a half hour.
The two lead characters, “gonzo journalist” Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his “Samoan” attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" take even less time to reach that heightened state of awareness as they down an assorted mess of illegal drugs and alcohol over the course of two hours.
I learned my lesson that night at the party. I started getting dizzy and sick to my stomach within the hour. Before the night was over, I vomited beer all over the women’s restroom in the dormitory. I immediately went to sleep afterwards and in the morning, when I awoke with a massive headache, I downed more than just a couple aspirin tablets. Two friends of mine told me I devoured a hamburger that night in the process. To this day, however, I still think one of them ate it themselves.
I haven’t gotten that drunk since nor have I done any drugs. Though I knew several at the college newspaper I worked at who smoked an occasional joint or two. Some did it more than others.
Granted, I’ll have more than a couple margaritas every once in a while but I don’t see the fun in getting inebriated to the point of passing out. If I had taken as many drugs and drunk as much alcohol as Duke and Gonzo do in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", I probably would have become what the Duke asks himself in the film’s first ten minutes if the two of them had “deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts.”
I got almost no enjoyment watching "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", which is based on real life journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s 1972 novel. I haven’t read it but a friend of mine who did told me the book was hilarious. I’ll admit I probably laughed about ten times while watching the film. A majority of those happened in the first ten or twenty minutes with the final ones occurring almost an hour later. What was funny was Duke’s reactions to certain situations while on drugs. He’d wave his arms wildly using a fly swatter swinging at what he thought were “large bats” flying around their red convertible. Or he’d bob his head back and forth as the windshield wipers were moving only to shrink back in horror the minute a valet hands him a ticket.
The film was directed by Terry Gilliam whose past works ("Twelve Monkeys" - 1995) have combined science fiction and fantasy. Now Gilliam takes us into a dreary, depressing world I don’t even want to visit whether I am sober or not. What’s unbelievable is the script, which apparently needed the help of not just Gilliam, who co-wrote it, but three other screenwriters as well, Alex Cox, Tony Grisoni, and Todd Davies. Every time I see more than one screenwriter attached to a film I immediately start thinking the screenplay may have already been weak to begin with.
Depp narrates practically the entire film in voice-over while his character sweats and stumbles about in light colored sunglasses, grits a cigarette holder between his teeth never taking it out, not even in bed, and speaks in sentences that don’t make a lot of sense. Or they would only make sense to him.
The plot has Duke and Gonzo heading to Las Vegas where the writer is assigned to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle races and later stays to cover a police convention. In almost every other sequence are a lot of pathetic scenes of the duo trashing their hotel rooms and laughing uncontrollably smoking grass and sniffing cocaine, mescaline, blotter acid, ether and “a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.” All of which is kept in a small suitcase as Del Toro’s Gonzo begins every other line of dialogue with “speaking as your attorney.”
At one point early on, Gonzo sits in a bathtub full of water, half naked listening to Jefferson Airplane, passing gas, and having uncontrollable violent outbursts. While Duke falls asleep in the bedroom, wrapping himself in the American flag, and waking up the next morning with either a Z written in red lipstick on his forehead and a gun in one hand or wearing half of what seems to be a lizard costume with a large tail sticking out of his rear end.
Gilliam directs as though he is in some sort of chemical induced state himself. The hotel carpets move in an assortment of bright colors while the patrons become giant humping lizards with large slobbering tongues. Clouds race across the sky while people’s faces are given close-ups as though they were looking in those twisted carnival mirrors. I could barely recognize any of the cameos, all of whom are just walk-ons and given names like “Hitchhiker” and “Blond TV Reporter” to round out the list of credits.
All of them are targets for Duke and Gonzo to insult like Cameron Diaz as the “blond TV reporter” who meets the two in an elevator. There is also Mark Harmon, who is only recognizable by voice as a magazine reporter since his entire body is covered in dust.
Other stars make humiliating entrances and exits that simply define what actors and actresses will do for money. Christina Ricci, who as a young girl played the dark, torturous daughter, Wednesday, in "The Addams Family" (1991), is now all grown up. Here she plays Gonzo’s supposed love interest whose first scene has her on her hands and knees barking like a dog and biting Duke’s leg the moment he walks in their hotel suite. And Gary Busey plays a highway patrolman whose sequence ends with his character asking Duke to kiss him.
There are others as well like Harry Dean Stanton as a judge, Ellen Barkin as a waitress, and Lyle Lovett as a singer. None of whom I realized were even in the movie until I saw the end credits.
By the time the nightmare ended, I felt like I had sat through a Cheech and Chong comedy from the 1980s in which the famous comedy duo, according to several negative reviews I read, did nothing but drugs. I have never seen one of their movies and have no intention of doing so. Now that I have seen "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas", I get the gist of what the critics were talking about when reviewing those Cheech and Chong comedies.
I won’t dispute the fact there is a lot of talent here. Gilliam’s done some memorable projects filled with vivid imagination. Depp's best performances are in "Ed Wood" (1994) and "Donnie Brasco" (1997).
I don’t doubt both will again one day make another good movie. If there is ever a picture for the 1990s that defines what it means to make an ass of one self, however, it is this one.
©4/19/23
The two lead characters, “gonzo journalist” Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his “Samoan” attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" take even less time to reach that heightened state of awareness as they down an assorted mess of illegal drugs and alcohol over the course of two hours.
I learned my lesson that night at the party. I started getting dizzy and sick to my stomach within the hour. Before the night was over, I vomited beer all over the women’s restroom in the dormitory. I immediately went to sleep afterwards and in the morning, when I awoke with a massive headache, I downed more than just a couple aspirin tablets. Two friends of mine told me I devoured a hamburger that night in the process. To this day, however, I still think one of them ate it themselves.
I haven’t gotten that drunk since nor have I done any drugs. Though I knew several at the college newspaper I worked at who smoked an occasional joint or two. Some did it more than others.
Granted, I’ll have more than a couple margaritas every once in a while but I don’t see the fun in getting inebriated to the point of passing out. If I had taken as many drugs and drunk as much alcohol as Duke and Gonzo do in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", I probably would have become what the Duke asks himself in the film’s first ten minutes if the two of them had “deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts.”
I got almost no enjoyment watching "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", which is based on real life journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s 1972 novel. I haven’t read it but a friend of mine who did told me the book was hilarious. I’ll admit I probably laughed about ten times while watching the film. A majority of those happened in the first ten or twenty minutes with the final ones occurring almost an hour later. What was funny was Duke’s reactions to certain situations while on drugs. He’d wave his arms wildly using a fly swatter swinging at what he thought were “large bats” flying around their red convertible. Or he’d bob his head back and forth as the windshield wipers were moving only to shrink back in horror the minute a valet hands him a ticket.
I like movies about writers and I kept thinking that somewhere in this picture, there must be a message or something to tell us about drug abuse, maybe a commentary or two about the 1960’s psychedelic generation and why adolescents turned to drugs at the height of the Vietnam conflict. I finally gave up after 30 minutes. The film is instead one big long road trip to nowhere with a soundtrack full of 1960’s and 70’s rock songs from such artists as the Rolling Stones, Tom Jones and Bob Dylan to name a few.The film doesn’t even fall into the same category as such drug/alcohol dramas like "Clean and Sober" (1988), "Days of Wine and Roses" (1962), "Less Than Zero" (1987) and "When a Man Loves a Woman" (1994) where the lead character either checks his/herself into a rehabilitation clinic over the course of the movie or dies in the end. If "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" qualifies as a comedy, my assumption is it would be only to those who have done as much drugs as the two characters do and experienced such unpleasant side effects I went through getting drunk like vomiting and waking up in the morning, not remembering what happened the night before. Personally, I saw no humor in waking up with a hangover.
The film was directed by Terry Gilliam whose past works ("Twelve Monkeys" - 1995) have combined science fiction and fantasy. Now Gilliam takes us into a dreary, depressing world I don’t even want to visit whether I am sober or not. What’s unbelievable is the script, which apparently needed the help of not just Gilliam, who co-wrote it, but three other screenwriters as well, Alex Cox, Tony Grisoni, and Todd Davies. Every time I see more than one screenwriter attached to a film I immediately start thinking the screenplay may have already been weak to begin with.
Depp narrates practically the entire film in voice-over while his character sweats and stumbles about in light colored sunglasses, grits a cigarette holder between his teeth never taking it out, not even in bed, and speaks in sentences that don’t make a lot of sense. Or they would only make sense to him.
The plot has Duke and Gonzo heading to Las Vegas where the writer is assigned to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle races and later stays to cover a police convention. In almost every other sequence are a lot of pathetic scenes of the duo trashing their hotel rooms and laughing uncontrollably smoking grass and sniffing cocaine, mescaline, blotter acid, ether and “a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.” All of which is kept in a small suitcase as Del Toro’s Gonzo begins every other line of dialogue with “speaking as your attorney.”
At one point early on, Gonzo sits in a bathtub full of water, half naked listening to Jefferson Airplane, passing gas, and having uncontrollable violent outbursts. While Duke falls asleep in the bedroom, wrapping himself in the American flag, and waking up the next morning with either a Z written in red lipstick on his forehead and a gun in one hand or wearing half of what seems to be a lizard costume with a large tail sticking out of his rear end.
Gilliam directs as though he is in some sort of chemical induced state himself. The hotel carpets move in an assortment of bright colors while the patrons become giant humping lizards with large slobbering tongues. Clouds race across the sky while people’s faces are given close-ups as though they were looking in those twisted carnival mirrors. I could barely recognize any of the cameos, all of whom are just walk-ons and given names like “Hitchhiker” and “Blond TV Reporter” to round out the list of credits.
All of them are targets for Duke and Gonzo to insult like Cameron Diaz as the “blond TV reporter” who meets the two in an elevator. There is also Mark Harmon, who is only recognizable by voice as a magazine reporter since his entire body is covered in dust.
Other stars make humiliating entrances and exits that simply define what actors and actresses will do for money. Christina Ricci, who as a young girl played the dark, torturous daughter, Wednesday, in "The Addams Family" (1991), is now all grown up. Here she plays Gonzo’s supposed love interest whose first scene has her on her hands and knees barking like a dog and biting Duke’s leg the moment he walks in their hotel suite. And Gary Busey plays a highway patrolman whose sequence ends with his character asking Duke to kiss him.
There are others as well like Harry Dean Stanton as a judge, Ellen Barkin as a waitress, and Lyle Lovett as a singer. None of whom I realized were even in the movie until I saw the end credits.
By the time the nightmare ended, I felt like I had sat through a Cheech and Chong comedy from the 1980s in which the famous comedy duo, according to several negative reviews I read, did nothing but drugs. I have never seen one of their movies and have no intention of doing so. Now that I have seen "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas", I get the gist of what the critics were talking about when reviewing those Cheech and Chong comedies.
I won’t dispute the fact there is a lot of talent here. Gilliam’s done some memorable projects filled with vivid imagination. Depp's best performances are in "Ed Wood" (1994) and "Donnie Brasco" (1997).
I don’t doubt both will again one day make another good movie. If there is ever a picture for the 1990s that defines what it means to make an ass of one self, however, it is this one.
©4/19/23
