Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
** out of *****
Cast: Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, Ellen Barkin, Gary Busey, Cameron Diaz, Flea, Mark Harmon, Christina Ricci, Katherine Helmond, Michael Jeter, Penn Jillette, Lyle Lovett, Harry Dean Stanton, Tim Thomerson Written by: Terry Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, Tod Davies and Alex Cox Based on the novel by: Hunter S. Thompson Directed by: Terry Gilliam Running Time: 128 minutes
Understand that I know absolutely nothing about Hunter S. Thompson or his work. Also understand that I have no desire to research him or his work in order to write this review. That having been said, let's begin...
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is just a ridiculous mess. It has it's good moments, but ultimately infuriates the viewer for having no point whatsoever. The film is similar to 1980's Where the Buffalo Roam where Bill Murray played rebellious writer Hunter S. Thompson and Peter Boyle was his whacked-out attorney. Here it's Johnny Depp as Thompson and Benicio Del Toro as his whacked-out attorney. Where the Buffalo Roam skipped right over the events of this film, and wisely so. The events in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas consist of nothing more that Depp and Del Toro using drugs, stumbling around, hallucinating, retreating to a hotel room, doing more drugs, stumbling around, hallucinating, and so on and so on.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas isn't telling us a story, and it isn't trying to say anything. It's just one long drug trip. It's mildly amusing for a while, and does provide a few chuckles, but it quickly wears thin. Depp is good playing yet another odd character, but Benecio Del Toro again gets on my nerves here. Whenever I see him on screen (in movies like The Fan and The Usual Suspects) I feel like I need subtitles to understand him. Add drunken slurs to his normal unintelligible dialogue and I can't understand one single syllable he utters.
The film just seems to raise questions that would be interesting to see addresses, but of course the film is more interested in obscure drug trips than anything coherent. For example, who is hiring Thompson to write articles for them? Why would anyone tolerate that kind of behavior? And also, who can live their life like this? How can someone consistantly wake up surrounded and covered in filth, not knowing what has happened for the last two hours or so, and then want to do it all over again? Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like how I felt after seeing this movie. Thankfully, I have enough sense to know that I'd never want that to happen again. [R]
The Jacksonville Film Journal -- Film Reviews by Chuck Dowling URL: http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Email: chuckd21@leading.net
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