Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Like martinis and black olives, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an acquired taste. I first saw it when it was broadcast on TV a few years ago, on something like TBS or USA or somewhere from that high-echelon alphabet soup, and I kept having to remind myself that it was probably edited all to hell for content and running time. Prior to seeing it, I'd actually heard little about it, knowing only who the main stars were. And after my first viewing, I was very confused—maybe even a bit unsettled and repulsed—by what I'd seen. If I had to sum up my feelings about the movie in one sentence, it would have been, "Wow, that's messed up." But like all good movies, something about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas stayed with me, continually piquing my curiosity, so eventually I had to get the DVD from Netflix (read, the unedited version!) for a second viewing. And upon second and subsequent viewings (not to mention reading the book!), I really came to understand what Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was all about.

Johnny Depp stars as Raoul Duke, who is essentially the alter ego of '70s writer Hunter S. Thompson. Benicio Del Toro fills the shoes of Dr. Gonzo, Duke's Samoan attorney and erstwhile companion on this trip to Vegas. According to Will, who has a degree in media studies, Hunter Thompson was a gonzo journalist, and the way he explained it to me was that gonzo journalism is basically live, participatory journalism. And the gonzo story that Duke was supposed to take part in in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was the Mint 400, a gigantic motorcycle race through the desert.

But as Thompson himself explained in an essay included in the DVD package, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was a failed attempt at gonzo journalism—because what ended up happening was that, instead of covering the race from start to finish, he (as Duke) and Dr. Gonzo instead went on a days-long drug bender through Vegas in 1971, barely getting any details of the race at all. So Fear and Loathing is essentially a log of drug-addled craziness during their stay in Vegas, and their absolutely crazed antics from constantly being high had me rolling on the floor with laughter and cringing in disbelief, often simultaneously.

I was greatly captivated by the movie's opening—Johnny Depp in voiceover, uttering a line that just necessitates a double-take and a smile, then opening up to the Great Red Shark flying down the highway through the desert, frantically trying to make it to Las Vegas. The high-speed first scene was filmed beautifully, firmly establishing the personas of both Duke and Dr. Gonzo, wonderfully executed by both actors.



Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam, who's known for making very psychedelic movies, most notably the negative utopia film Brazil. I'd have to say he was a pretty good choice for directing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, because to adequately film the conceptually-detached, hallucinogenic, raving-mad scenes of Duke and Gonzo's drug highs, you'd need a director with an equally raving-mad vision . . . and that Gilliam has.

Take, for example, their arrival at the Vegas hotel. When they check in, Duke is still very high on acid, and he keeps seeing the room change shape before his eyes—with the carpet underneath flowing like a black oil, or suddenly everyone in the room has turning into reptiles, or seeing the shadows of combat airplanes silhouetted on the floor of his suite. Even better, take the scene when Duke and Gonzo are at the Bazooka Joe's casino (featuring a cameo by Mini-Me!). It's probably better to watch this scene yourself, because I don't think I could adequately describe it in words. (Yes, it's that bizarre.)



Despite all the craziness that Duke and Gonzo cause, there are still moments of serious reflection in the film. Perhaps the best-known scene of the entire movie, known as the "wave" speech, is when Duke spends an evening at the typewriter remembering his life during the '60s. It's often been said (even by Hunter Thompson himself) that the wave speech is Thompson's personal, heartfelt epitaph to the '60s.



Like Full Metal Jacket before it, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is essentially a movie split in half. The first half takes place at one hotel while they're supposed to be covering the Mint 400, whereas the second half takes place at another hotel across town—during a convention of police chiefs rallying against drugs, no less. Can we say, "Walking around in the lion's den?" The second half is noticeably darker than the first, which was (in its own way, of course) more comedic and lighter in tone. But the second half shows Duke and Gonzo in their more desperate, escapist mode—for the reason they moved to a second Vegas hotel was (literally) to escape the first. Since Duke recorded little to no details about the Mint 400, despite briefly covering it with an ever-smiling photographer, he and Dr. Gonzo spent much of their time ordering enormous amounts of food from room service, destroying their hotel room while high, and ultimately skipping out without paying their bill. So at the conclusion of the first half of the film, Dr. Gonzo has caught a plane back to L.A. in the middle of the night, and Duke himself manages to cower out of the hotel.

The only reason he comes back is because a traffic cop pulled him over in the desert, and in sheer panic, Duke returned to Vegas, knowing that the cop would bust him if he continued on to L.A. So he ditches his car, rents a new one, and checks into a second hotel . . . only to find Dr. Gonzo has returned, this time with a younger companion named Lucy (played by Christina Ricci), whose armed with paintings of Barbra Streisand. After some outrageous attempts to get rid of Lucy (like putting her in a cab and then faking an arrest when she calls the hotel looking for them), Duke and Gonzo essentially continue the "savage burn", as they call it, on this new hotel suite. (How Hunter Thompson managed to not get arrested for all he and Dr. Gonzo did in Vegas—let alone for publishing their account for all to see—is quite amazing, I might add.)

There are many who call Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a drug movie, plain and simple. And I won't argue that it shows the many downsides of being on drugs, but I choose to think of the story from the gonzo perspective: a live chronicling of several days worth of super over-indulgence when they were supposed to be working; not as an examination of drugs in general. I think the constant drug use is partially what turned me off when I first saw this, but the comedy is really the central focus of the film, and that's not really apparent until further viewings; that's why I say Fear and Loathing is an acquired taste. The book itself is also a quick but tough read, and I really have to give kudos to director Terry Gilliam for capturing Thompson's imagery and successfully translating it to the big screen. And I enjoyed the near-constant soundtrack of '60s music in the background. It lent so much authenticity to the film, making it come alive all around you—so that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas almost became a gonzo experience just by watching it.

The cameos in Fear and Loathing are plentiful: Tobey Maguire as the hippie hitchhiker, Christina Ricci as the Jesus-loving artist Lucy, Cameron Diaz as the flirtatious producer who foolishly tempts Dr. Gonzo, Harry Dean Stanton as the "double castration" judge, and (my favorite cameo) Gary Busey as the lonely desert traffic cop. When he asks Duke for a kiss after he's pulled him over for speeding, it's impossible for me not to laugh. Hunter Thompson himself even had makes a brief appearance, as Duke's alter ego when he was reminiscing about being at the dance club in 1965.

But Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas firmly belongs to the two lead actors, for both Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro dish out some of their best work to date here. I'll even go so far as to say that this was Johnny Depp's best role ever (sorry to all you Pirates fans), because he absolutely nailed Hunter Thompson in every way possible—from mannerisms to dialogue to his taste in clothing. As to Benicio, he was downright terrifying when he played a doped-up Gonzo! Take the diner scene late in the movie, when he pulls the hunting knife on the waitress. His actions are so deliberate, so fully-controlled (and controlling) that you know just who is in charge here. Or when he's spazzing out in the bathtub and asks Duke to drop the tape player into the tub when "White Rabbit" hits its peak.

And I particularly enjoyed Raoul Duke's final scenes of the movie: typing away on his typewriter in the midst of an annihilated hotel suite, reflecting again on the '60s but this time pondering the downfall of heavy drug users and the counterculture. In a very strange way, it made his final trek back to Los Angeles unexpectedly uplifting. (And I should add, too, that there was a different end to the book. In the book, Thompson caught a plane back to L.A., essentially trying to put the whole Vegas trip behind him. Personally, I liked Gilliam's version better.) 9 out of 10.