Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Very Cool!!!

Let's be realistic.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Continuing my plan to watch every Johnny Depp movie in order, I come to Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas (1998)As someone who has never taken any none medically described drugs, this movie was never going to be my cup of tea. I considered it one of Depp's worst the last time I seen it (in the cinema in 1998) and not a lot has changed. Based on Hunter S Thomsons novel of the same name. This is just a mess, the movie pretty much repeats itself over and over as Depp and Del Toro take drugs, stumble into diffrent situations, wreak havoc, and go back to their hotel rooms. I can't fault Depp's performance, he'd already proved himself a talented actor by this point, and here (with a bald head, strange hats, big shades, and a cigarette holder between his clenched teeth) is no different, as he gives his all and totally immerses himself in his character. Much of the clothing worn by Depp in the movie were the real clothes Hunter S. Thompson wore in the '70s. Thompson himself let Depp borrow them for the movie, after Depp spent four months with Thompson learning his mannerisms and proper vocal inflection for the role.Benico Del Toro is fine as is Toby Maguire as a hitchhiker. Cameron Diaz, Gary Busey and Verne Troyer pop up as does a very braless Christina Ricci. Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas grossed $10 million dollars at the domestic box office to not land a place on highest 100 grossing movie of the year list.

The first 5 minutes of this film is pure genius. I must give credit where it is due. You realise very early on that the setting, the costumes, the wide angle lens capturing the dessert, & the uncanny dialogue compressed with tape distortion & 60's EQ is all so contrasted that it sails to hilarity. And that is drugs in a coconut shell.. it's funny. This film isn't. In all my years of watching film & TV, I have never yet seen Drugs portrayed honestly. I don't know what the deal is, but everyone has a really mediocre & cliché opinion of drugs affects on the mind. In reality, you don't have people being chased home by a party of mars bars. Instead, you feel relevant to your surroundings. So much so that it is easy to become paranoid, yes. But it never takes over as long as you have trust & communication. It is similar to experiencing the format of your childhood without the nostalgia. Everything feels new once more. It is both enlightening & cleansing. Almost spiritual, as felicity ramifies freely. And all the bullshit of the world's economic greed are left to destroy themselves with risk & hope. Where as in movies.. people just act like total raving loonies. Stumbling all over the place, & embarrassing everyone around them awkwardly until the director demands the wavering plot to return to drama & jokes based upon what people have already seen & accepted. Instead of the careful pace & dosage made by men & women who's metacognition is in perfect check, so that they may better themselves by exploring the countryside, whilst familiarising themselves with how time can slow down to a steady tick, in order to take note of every beautiful detail in a heightened punctilious manner... Instead, you have near invincible sebaceous men deploring decorum & forswearing moral alacrity as though their inner sanctum is filled with ever spurning antipathy. And the reckless craving to disturb everyone around them. Well, this film is one of those films where the noises in your own head become louder than the dialogue in the film. "Drugs are BAD. Yes. We get it". I fail to see how yet another typical film with this dull & tired message has anything fresh to contribute? How about a film that says "Drugs are good"? Now wouldn't that be a controversy? Avoid this film. Unless you think drugs are cool. In which case you are stupid enough to laugh at the same tired joke over & over anyway.

Terry Gilliam takes on the daunting task of adapting Hunter S. Thompson's psychedelic novel into an on screen feature, a task few directors including Martin Scorcese and Oliver a Stone attempted, but failed to make it pass the green lighting stage. The results aren't necessarily unsatisfactory, but show that some literacy works don't translate on screen efficiently, even with the most talented filmmakers working behind the camera. This black comedy starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro drags viewers through a loopy, psychedelic odyssey of a morally depraved duo who finds themselves intoxicated in what feels like more like a two-hour celebration of nearly drug in the book than a film with a cohesive story to follow. And with Terry Gilliam's inventive, but intoxicating visual methodology, it places it's characters through a loopy journey that is destined to leave audience either laughing hysterically or horribly disturbed by the vile nature of excessive drug escapades that pervades most of the film. The movie follows two stoners: the idiotic journalist Raoul Duke (played by Johnny Depp) and psychopathic lawyer Dr. Gonzo (played by Benicio De Toro) as they cruise in their red convertible through the deserts of Nevada and into the shiny streets of Las Vegas where he pursue their way to the American Dream, only to find themselves warped in a series of chaotic circumstances contributed by their compulsive drug addiction.If this film feels like a cerebral acid trip to you upon watching it, don't worry! You are not alone. With the characters letting wild on just about every drug in the book including pot, acid, heroin, cocaine, LCD, and what not; there is very little you can expect other than the feeling being sozzled out after taking a mind-altering substance. Terry Gilliam accomplishes this through a unique, but mind-bending technique involving visual distortion in intent of providing viewers with a feel of the condition Roaul and Gonzo are experiencing when drowning out in their excessive drug feud. During the scenes when the characters are experiencing withdrawals from hallucinagens, viewers watch as the camera bobbles at low angles back and worth, and the lighting obtains a reddish tint place an odd and uncomfortable feeling of intoxication. This technique is highly creative and shows the beauty of Terry Gilliam's immersive visual heft. Although the nightmarish imagery of Raoul's hallucinations such as the hotel clerk's head morphing into a monstrous alien creature is rather cheesy and unrealistic, it certainly paints a reasonable picture of the character's mental perspective. These scenes occasionally offer some good , but tend to be executed in an unsettling manner that towers surrealism over humor. By the end, the only humor we can manage to swallow out of these characters in some occasional solid one-liners but nothing memorable.While Terry Gilliam may have the visual style to compel the wild Las Vegas adventure, the film falls quite flat in the narrative department, offering an unwholesome mess of a plot with characters that are not only incredible foolish and vile in nearly every sense, but offer almost no backstory other than Raoul being a long-time journalist and Gonzo being an absent-minded lawyer, though it doesn't entirely defeat the likability of the characters. Their strange philosophy on the American Dream does provide at least some decent humor, but nothing clever. Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro are both funny every once in awhile, even in scenes when they're indulging in hardcore drug hysteria, and their performances are not bad to say the least. Raoul is arguably the most unusual and light- hearted role Depp has endure in his career, compared to his more clever outings. The same can probably be said for Toro as he is rarely accustomed to oddball, comedic roles. Though there performances don't link into the Oscar calibur, they do little to make up for the clobbered mess the plot delivers. The plot transcends through such choppy pacing it borders on the line of being incomprehensible. Although it seems Gilliam is trying to match the pacing with the psychedelic condition of the lead characters, the overall effect doesn't work in the way it should. Even though Gilliam supplements some liberties from Hunter S. Thompson's novel, it's clearly evident he's struggling to enhance the life and soul of Thompson's narration into from novel to the screen. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is probably not the most comfortable vehicle to sit through, nor does it demonstrate the best of Terry Gilliam's directorial talent, it still benefits from a humorous standpoint and provides a compelling cerebral that some will come to enjoy, while others will likely experience a sense of disgust.

Although widely considered a cult classic, this movie is almost unwatchable for the average viewer. The depiction of the LSD experience and general visual approach of Terry Gilliam is interesting as always, but that's hardly enough to support an entire movie. Even the slightest sign of a plot would have helped enormously, but the film is just a stitching of scenes comprising of... pretty much nothing at all. The movie's subsequent cult success is probably due to the fact that people with drug experiences can identify with certain events of the movie, but definitely, experiencing an acid trip yourself must be much more enjoyable than living it through the eyes of a bald Johnny Depp.