fear
and loathing
in las vegas |
director
Terry Gilliam
screenwriters
Terry Gilliam
Tony Grisoni
Tod Davies
Alex Cox
based on
the book by
Hunter
S. Thompson
producers
Patrick Cassavetti
Laila Nabulsi
Stephen Nemeth
cinematographer
Nicola Pecorini
music
Ray Cooper
Michael Kamen
editor
Lesley Walker
cast
Johnny Depp (Raoul Duke)
Benicio Del Toro (Dr. Gonzo)
Tobey Maguire (Hitchhiker)
Ellen Barkin (Waitress)
Gary Busey (The Cop)
Christina Ricci (Lucy)
Mark Harmon (Magazine Reporter)
Cameron Diaz (Reporter in Elevator)
Katherine Helmond (Desk Clerk)
Michael Jeter (L. Ron Bumquist)
Penn Jillette (Barker)
Craig Bierko (Lacerda)
Lyle Lovett (Hippie)
Flea (The Ruined Man)
Laraine Newman (Frog-Eyed Woman)
Harry Dean Stanton (Judge)
Tim Thomerson (Hoodlum)
Christopher Meloni (Sven)
Jenette Goldstein (Alice the Maid)
Hunter S. Thompson (Himself)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 118m
u.s.
release: May 22, 1998
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
other terry
gilliam films
reviewed on this website:
- the brothers grimm
- the fisher king
- 12
monkeys
|
The
subtitle of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S.
Thompson's classic work of Gonzo Journalism, is "A Savage
Journey to the Heart of the American Dream," and that's
the key to appreciating both the book and Terry Gilliam's astonishing
film version. The surface reading of the "story" would
be that of two guys wandering around Vegas getting loaded and
having a variety of progressively insane misadventures. Its true
subject, though, is the sea-to-shining-sea derangement of America,
its uneasy mix of forbidding Puritanism and greedhead capitalism,
its straight-arrows who seem weirder than the weirdos, the "normal"
recreational activities so bizarre that they render drug hallucinations
redundant.
The great rebel Terry Gilliam is ideal for this material, and
he approaches Fear and Loathing as a sort of extension
of the odd little cut-out animations he used to do for Monty
Python. This is his best work since Brazil, and very likely
the most vivid and mesmerizing American comedy of the '90s. (Typically,
the reviews in America have been, well, savage.) Working with
cinematographer Nicola Pecorini, and shooting for the first time
in Panavision (which intensifies his trademark wide-angle distortions),
Gilliam crafts a beautiful/ugly visual poem, a jittery, deadpan
exercise in hellish red and aqua blue and paranoid green -- the
American dream as peyote nightmare.
Johnny Depp immerses himself in the role of "Raoul Duke"
(i.e., Thompson), a sportswriter who goes to Vegas to cover the
Mint 400 (a desert race for motorcycles and dune buggies). Along
for the ride is "Dr. Gonzo" (Benicio Del Toro), a wild
Samoan attorney inspired by Thompson's friend Oscar Acosta. Their
rented red Chevy convertible is a drugstore on wheels -- the
movie could be retitled Apothecary Now. The men are always
snorting or smoking one evil thing or another, stumbling around
casinos while completely twisted on ether or acid. Oddly, sex
doesn't play much of a role, except for an artistic runaway waif
(Christina Ricci) the attorney picks up. Duke is as asexual as
the lizards he hallucinates.
Which could be part of the point. Fear and Loathing is
about the ways American men sublimate sexual lust -- through
idiotic, punishing sports, or firearm worship, or fascism (Duke
also -- hilariously -- covers a narc convention). Despite the
occasional threats and knife-waving, our anti-heroes are as close
as soldiers in a foxhole, and Depp and Del Toro bring out the
best in each other. Del Toro, packing an added 40 pounds, does
his most lucid and comprehensible work (amazing, considering
the wacked-out loon he's playing), and Depp doesn't just imitate
Thompson -- he channels the man's rubbery outlaw spirit. Funny
and repulsive, obnoxious yet in some ways pitiable, Depp's performance
should kill, once and for all, whatever pretty-boy image he still
has left.
Gilliam wisely uses Thompson's writing as narration, and the
script -- which he cowrote with Tony Grisoni, reworking an early
attempt by Alex Cox (Sid & Nancy) and Tod Davies --
is scrupulously faithful to the book. Yet Gilliam doesn't let
Thompson off the hook -- the movie isn't just a jokey celebration
of weirdness. In scenes like the one with Ellen Barkin as a waitress
terrorized by the knife-wielding attorney, Gilliam measures the
human cost of his heroes' bad craziness. Those who complain that
the film glorifies its protagonists just aren't paying attention.
Duke and his attorney fancy themselves wild outsiders, but they're
just as much a part of hellish America as the monsters they encounter.
In fact, they're more: living it up, trashing ritzy hotel rooms,
getting away with everything short of murder, they embody
the American dream in their own addled, squalid way -- a nightmare
of excess and consumption.
That's the true horror and comedy of the book, and Gilliam gets
every bit of it onto the screen. Thompson's book has endured
for 27 years, and not just because of its drug-induced strangeness:
like William Burroughs' Naked Lunch, it uses hallucinatory
states as a funhouse mirror on the sordid, ugly face of humanity.
Gilliam's film will likewise endure, and outlive the short-sighted
critical bashing. Years from now, it will be reappraised as a
misunderstood masterpiece. Well, this is one American critic
who's not waiting until years from now, if you catch my drift. |