Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
 (1998)
review by Big McLargehuge

This is a tremendous disservice to the film, to the book, and the message contained inside both.

Terry Gilliam did the impossible. He actually filmed one of the weirdest stream-of-consciousness books every committed to paper and that alone makes Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas worth at least one view. Hunter S. Thompson/Raul Duke (Johnny Depp) and The Samoan Lawyer/Dr. Gonzo (Benecio Del Toro-at that time an unknown) drift through the chaos of early 1970’s Las Vegas like two intertwined tornadoes wreaking havoc on every environment they cross.

Gilliam is no stranger to unusual visuals, from the classic Brazil to the grossly underappreciated Baron Munchausen, to Time Bandits, Gilliam knows that what goes on around the characters is equally as important as what the characters do. What better place to make his greatest visual statement than early 1970’s Vegas? Better yet, skew that Vegas through the eyes of two perpetually stoned men.

Gilliam brings every acid sequence, every mescaline and ether clouded rampage, and every drunken binge to set after set of chaotic, claustrophobic hotels, casino’s and big-assed American cars.

Duke and Gonzo are the effluent of the idealistic 1960’s, and Raul Duke knows it. Fear and Loathing isn’t a so much a story of two insane characters reaking havock in an equally insane world, that would be too easy, and dishonest to the spirit of the book. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the tale of an entire generation lost when the Summer of Love devolved into the largesse of paranoia and excess that fortold of the Disco years, and the Me Generation to follow.

It works gloriously well. Gilliam captured the look of old Vegas, the shag carpets, the vinyl wallpaper, the cravatted flamboyantly gay desk clerks, big hair, polyester, narcissism, self involvement, and Debby Reynolds with such an eye for detail it requires multiple viewings to take it all in.

Just watching the slow destruction of two hotel suites was enough to bring me back to the rental counter for this film.

This film is a miracle of set design.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an exploration of the dark heart of the American Dream, and when the narrative pokes through the fog of exess, it demonstrates just how right on target Hunter S. Thompson was in his assessment of post-hippie America.

“And that, I think, was the handle---that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting---on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark---the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. “

To discuss this film without mentioning the vitruouso performances of both Depp and Del Toro would be an injustice. Depp channels Hunter Thompson, from the weird clipped speech to the perpetual cigarette holder stuck between his teeth, from the end of the first scene you forget that this is only a movie. Del Toro, on the other hand, is not so much a character in this film as he is a lighning bolt of madness.

Watching Depp and Del Toro play off each other is like nothing I have ever seen before in film. At times they finish each other sentences, at others it is almost as if they are acting in two simultaneous, yet different, movies.

The film contains two specific events that keep the action focused in Las Vegas, the first is the aforementioned Mint 400, the second is a DA convention about drug abuse, that displays the shocking lack of information passed around just as the drug culture was beginning to spin out of control. In between these sequences we experience acid trips, ether rampages, and crazed adrenochrome madness all through the perspective of Raoul Duke. Gilliam manages to put us in these situations via both computer effects and standard special effect costumes.

The computer effects are subtle and intriguing, carpet patterns that move and crawl up legs, faces that contort to mirror the change in perception offered by near fatal amounts of LSD, while the costumes are confined to lizard-people orgies and an indoor circus that fails to get any stranger as Depp deals with a mescaline stupor.

The film is something wonderful. It’s hard to watch, harder even to understand, but it has to be seen. It speaks of us all and to us all. Some of the film is funny, some of it is frightening, and some just rolls out of your screen like a chunky dollop of vomited Red Snapper.

Rent it, or buy the DVD, but be ready.

At the dark heart of the American Dream, there is no one there but us.