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Where the Wave Finally Broke and Rolled Back
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Oct 25, 2007
7
of
8 people found this review helpful
Originally penned in 1971 for Rolling Stone magazine, Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas spoke volumes to a misplaced culture lost in the wake of a decade gone horribly adrift. His protagonists' journey through the heart of America in a convertible dubbed "the great red shark" wretched up a paranoia in the system that no one had done well since Kerouac. Vegas became an overflowing cauldron of everything that was wrong in the country, its characters swimming through the murky mess trying to find meaning in the muck. The clever narrative, trapped in a labrynthian, non-linear storyline was clearly unfilmable.
Somehow though, the film got made, lizard *****ing and all. That feat in itself is a marvel. At the time of its release in the theaters Fear and Loathing was a retarded cousin of aryan posterboys at the school prom that became Hollywood. Thanks to a less than brilliant marketing campaign, the film went largely unnoticed under the shadow of another well dressed lizard...Godzilla.
Despite its initial failure, the film grew a cult-like following through video for its inspired visuals and over the top performances. Was it a drug movie, a road trip, a pretentious mess, or some sort of hidden metaphor for the death of an era? Like all great cinema, everyone seems to take something different from the drug filled orgy of Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, the alter egos of Thompson and Latino activist Oscar Acosta. A dynamic duo of a different sort, we're not exactly sure what they are fighting for, but we're sure it's something, and definitely something important.
After fifteen years of hard work Producer Laila Nabulsi (a close friend of Thompson's) finally got a greenlight from Universal for the film that had Johnny Depp playing Duke. Benicio Del Torro started eating twelve donuts a day to prepare for his role as Dr. Gonzo. Late in the game Director Gilliam, who Nabulsi worried wouldn't be able to visually construct Vegas because he had never tried LSD, was attached to the picture. Anyone familiar with Gilliam's previous work (12 Monkeys, Brazil) would have known better.
A loose storyline witnesses the exploits of a gonzo journalist and his overweight, "Samoan" attorney as they cruise through the desert for a writing assignment in Vegas. The assignment, a dirt-bike race for the opening of a new Hotel, gets muddled in the adventures that a suitcase of drug gear fuels. Soon enough, the debauchary of Vegas is superceded by the actions of its newly arrived guests. The viewer, lost in this semblance of a plot, is left trapped in a jumble of hallucinations and color.
Gilliam's vision in Fear and Loathing is not only ballsy, but purposeful. In the film, the camera lives as a visual baramater of the characters themselves. The angle, and amount of motion dictate the drug induced persepctive of the film's hereos. When a somber Duke returns a plate of food to a scared and crestfallen waitress, the camera sits still, deadpan on his grief. He's gone too far this time.
To measure the amount of skill Johnny Depp shows in Fear and Loathing one needs only look to the source, Thompson himself, who has a commentary on the disc. Although some see Duke as an overextended cartoon, the depth of Depp's performance lies in the mellow scenes, the ones where a drowsy Duke has to sit down and take hold of his previous actions, rationalizing the insanity. Del Torro, without the presence of a living archetype, plays Acosta with lots of laughs and a big heart. His over-cooked apex in a hotel bathroom gives voice to the fear that went along with the comedy.
Fear and Loathing is that rare breed of cinema that you'll find yourself going back to again and again to find new perspectives on its gonzo storytelling and dialouge. The film has a life of its own, and seems to grow along with the viewer. Some discount it merely as a drug movie about two buddies in Vegas, an unrealistic farce caught in pretentious film making. To do so discounts the historical perspective, not just in the events of the time, but the feeling of a people. A time where the wave was at its zenith, when hope was still prudent, and the wave had not yet fallen. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a misunderstood classic, and one of my favorite films. |
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