Vintage

Just because a movie is weird, frenetic and about drugs doesn’t make it a good movie.  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas sucked.  I watched the movie mostly disinterested as I quickly learned this flick was simply one drug-induced cyclic episode after mind-numbing episode.  Okay, I get it.  These guys are kicked in the ass, crazy and look out Vegas—these guys live on the edge!

According to the trusted source Wikipedia, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was a box office failure, grossing 10.6 million at the North American box office, well below its $18.5 million budget. It also received mostly negative reviews from film critics. It has since become a cult classic due in large part to its release on DVD, including a Special Edition released by the Criterion Collection, and perhaps has assumed a place in the buffoon’s heart for a reason: it masquerades as something hip. The woefully shallow may buy it hook, coke line and sinker.

I guess I should talk about what the heck this movie was about.  It is in relation to the famous Hunter S. Thompson essay of the same title.  Thompson, a depressing sort, coined “Gonzo Journalism,” ostensibly a no-holds-barred, drink-all-you-want, fuck-all-you-want, snort-all-you-want, romp while making sure the cocaine doesn’t fly from the hooker’s naked hip.

Journalist Raoul Duke (Depp) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (del Toro) travel to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1971 to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race for a sports magazine, and experience a haphazardly-planned vacation (if not a downright psychedelic wrong exit).

The vacation turns highly foolish and reckless as the two ingest massive amounts of drugs, commit various acts of fraud, and generally wreak havoc upon the good citizens of Las Vegas. The film is a fictionalized account of Thompson and attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta's two trips to Las Vegas in March and April of that year, again based on the book of the same title.

I just didn’t like this movie.  Maybe some of our other reviewers here will disagree with me and if so, would love to hear their reasons why.  Reasons why?  That is a concept utterly lacking in this film.

Believe it or not, it stars some pretty damn cool actors: Jonny Deep as Raul Duke and Benicio Del Torro as Dr. Gonzo.  Both of these guys are great in other films, Depp in a whole bunch, Del Torro especially in The Usual Suspects.  Both of them suck a fat weenie in this film. 

Guess who else shows up in this film: Tobey Maguire as The Hitchhiker; Ellen Barkin as The Waitress at North Star Café; Gary Busey as The Highway Patrolman; Christina Ricci as Lucy; Mark Harmon as The Magazine Reporter at Mint 400; Cameron Diaz as The Blonde TV Reporter; Lyle Lovett as The Road Person; Even Hunter S. Thompson is sitting at club, interjecting himself into this piece of shit movie. 
But, I hear the Rolling Stone essay is pretty good. 

Obviously they way I am going here is to trash this film like both main characters trashed a hotel room in one scene, but from what I hear, the Stone’s piece is great.  In fact, the only snippets of dialogue that were vaguely interesting seemed to be taken right from the book.  Unfortunately, Fear and loathing is that rare visual failure of film in the hard to fuck-up back drop of Las Vegas. 

But what can be said about this film, Fear and Loathing, besides I thought it sucked.  I should have something critical to add to the discussion.  But therein we must ask ourselves: how many sides does a turd have?  One, I think.  Here are the biggest transgressions in this film dropping:

First, it was the same shit over and over and over again.  They get wasted and cavort through Vegas, big deal.  This sort of behavior was well established in the opening sequence, a trip to Vegas in a convertible.  Secondly, even though they got into trouble, nothing really happened at all.  It was just trashing hotel rooms and lot of screaming and yelling.   I am hard pressed to say that the acting in this film was really bad, but it was.  This is hands down the worst Depp movie I have watched.  Benicio sucked just as bad and gave no indication of the great roles he would come to play later. 

The only part I found remotely interesting involved a diner toward the end of the film.  Here Benicio, I know Dr. Gonzo, and Johnny, I know, Duke, sit down to have some pie.  Dr. Gonzo is wasted and decides to slip a napkin with a perverse note on it to the waitress who has a real nice can.  She flips out on him and so Dr. Gonzo reveals a big knife. He then starts stabbing the counter and the waitress is frozen with fear.  Duke has the knowing insight she has the look of someone caught in horror or terror at some previous abuse or transgression.

So what happens after all this knife waving?  He walks out of the diner with a fucking lemon meringue pie.  Who gives a flying shit?  It is like we have to take some kind of hyper-symbolic bullshit from this scene.  Duke said nothing and then there—that is the commentary.  Deep as a lemon Meringue pie! 

If the same material was in the hands of someone like Scorsese, I think the result would have been much different.  Scorsese knows how to milk the scene and put you in the milieu and that is what this movie so desperately wanted to accomplish.  It wanted you to sympathize with these losers, much like we are attracted to the flawed gangsters in a Scorsese flick.  This movie just made you want to sober up (I hate when movies make me want to do that). Ultimately, shame on director Terry Gilliam.  He took a good Stone’s piece and fucked it all up.