Instead of tacking the list of special features on at the bottom as usual, let me tell you about the extras on this two-disc Criterion Collection set right up front: it comes with three separate commentary tracks by the director, actors, and author Hunter S. Thompson (!), the obligatory deleted scenes, a documentary feature about Thompson's visit to the set, an hour-long 1978 BBC documentary about Thompson, footage of Johnny Depp reading his correspondence with Thompson for the camera, a scene from an audio interpretation of Fear and Loathing with Jim Jarmush and Harry Dean Stanton, an extensive collection of production art, and a thick booklet with essays, including two pieces by Thompson himself. How on earth, you might ask yourself, did this twisted and druggy freak show, the "most expensive midnight movie ever made," deserve such lavish treatment?
The truth is that "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," while disappointing at the theaters, has become a cult classic. Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 novel, which just recently appeared in the "Modern Library" Series, is increasingly being recognized as an enduring work of art, perhaps even one of the defining books of the second half of the century. Thompson's tale, ostensibly a report from a motor bike race, turns into a fearless account from the zonked-out battlefield of the American mind at the end of the sixties.
Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro play a pair of dangerous dope fiends in an outrageous rampage through Vegas. Gilliam's hallucinatory visual style is a perfect fit for the team's mission, which leads them into a literal lizard's lounge, a D.A. convention, "Circus Circus" from hell, and even darker places, while the sneer of Richard Nixon lurks at the edges and the Vietnam war overshadows the unhinged proceedings.
Neither the book nor the film are for the moralizing or squeamish: there are more drugs being smoked, sniffed, snorted, eaten and abused in heroic doses than seems humanly possible, and the results aren't exactly what Timothy Leary had in mind, either -- the trip turns from whacky to ugly fast. The back and forth between hilarity and horror is bewildering. When Benicio del Toro pulls his knife on Ellen Barkin, even the most sympathetic stoner in the audience will have to admit that these guys clearly had too much too fast. There is method to the madness -- "Fear and Loathing" is a somber eulogy on the failed dreams of a generation, disguised as an acid-fuelled romp.
The cast is perfect: Depp's performance as Raoul Duke, Thompson's alter ego, is a physical mimicry learned from long nights spent at the author's Colorado compound. As cartoonish as it seems, Depp's Thompson is by all accounts quite accurate and realistic. His fantastic slapstick moves should have earned him accolades and awards. Benicio del Toro's overweight and off kilter Samoan lawyer Dr. Gonzo is an unsettling combination of the sweet and menacing. The supporting cast is stuffed with a-list names including Christina Ricci, Harry Dean Stanton, Ellen Barkin, Cameron Diaz, Lyle Lovett, and Tobey McGuire.
Gilliam accomplished a stylish and faithful adaptation of a lasting classic of American literature, a film well deserving the outstanding release Criterion lavished on it.
