Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a 1998 American stoner road black comedy film based on Hunter S. Thompson's novel of the same name. It was co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam and stars Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro as Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, respectively. The film details the duo's journey through Las Vegas as their initial journalistic intentions devolve into an exploration of the city under the influence of psychoactive substances.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Terry Gilliam
- Tony Grisoni
- Tod Davies
- Alex Cox
- Laila Nabulsi
- Patrick Cassavetti
- Stephen Nemeth
- Summit Entertainment[1]
- Rhino Films[1]
- Shark Productions[1]
- Fear and Loathing LLC[1]
- May 22, 1998
118 minutes
United States
English
$18 million
$13.7 million
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was released on May 22, 1998, by Universal Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a financial failure, however, the film began to gain a number of fans and is today considered a cult classic.
Plot[edit]
In 1971, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo speed across the Mojave Desert. Duke, under the influence of mescaline, complains of a swarm of giant bats, and inventories their drug stash. They pick up a young hitchhiker and explain their mission: Duke has been assigned by a magazine to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race in Las Vegas. They bought excessive drugs for the trip, and rented a red Chevrolet Impala convertible. The hitchhiker flees on foot at their behavior. Trying to reach Vegas before the hitchhiker can go to the police, Gonzo gives Duke part of a sheet of "Sunshine Acid" (ultra-purified LSD), then informs him that there is little chance of making it before the drug kicks in. By the time they reach the strip, Duke is in the full throes of his trip and barely makes it through the hotel check-in, hallucinating that the clerk is a moray eel and that his fellow bar patrons are orgiastic lizards.
The next day, Duke arrives at the race and heads out with his photographer, Lacerda. Duke becomes irrational and believes that they are in the middle of a battlefield, so he fires Lacerda and returns to the hotel. After consuming more mescaline, as well as huffing diethyl ether, Duke and Gonzo arrive at the Bazooko Circus casino but leave shortly afterwards, the chaotic atmosphere frightening Gonzo. Back in the hotel room, Duke leaves Gonzo unattended, and tries his luck at Big Six. When Duke returns he finds that Gonzo, high on LSD, has trashed the room, and is in the bathtub clothed, attempting to pull the tape player in with him as he wants to hear the song better. He pleads with Duke to throw the machine into the water when the song "White Rabbit" peaks. Duke agrees, but instead throws a grapefruit at Gonzo's head before running outside and locking Gonzo in the bathroom. Duke attempts to type his reminisces on hippie culture, and flashes back to San Francisco where a hippie licks spilled LSD off his sleeve.
The next morning, Duke awakens to an exorbitant room service bill and no sign of Gonzo (who has returned to Los Angeles while Duke slept), and attempts to leave town. As he nears Baker, California, a patrolman stops him for speeding, and advises him to sleep at a nearby rest stop. Duke instead heads to a payphone and calls Gonzo, learning that he has a suite in his name at the Flamingo Las Vegas so he can cover a district attorney's convention on narcotics. Duke checks into his suite, only to be met by an LSD-tripping Gonzo and a young girl called Lucy, who Gonzo explains has come to Las Vegas to meet Barbra Streisand, and that this was her first LSD trip. Duke convinces Gonzo to ditch Lucy in another hotel before her trip wears off.
Gonzo accompanies Duke to the convention, and the pair discreetly snort cocaine as the guest speaker delivers a comically out-of-touch speech about "marijuana addicts" before showing a brief film. Unable to take it, Duke and Gonzo flee back to their room, only to discover that Lucy has called. Their trips mostly over, Gonzo deals with Lucy over the phone (pretending that he is being savagely beaten by thugs) as Duke attempts to mellow out by trying some of Gonzo's stash of adrenochrome. However, Duke has a bad reaction to the drugs and is reduced to an incoherent mess before he blacks out.
After an unspecified amount of time passes, Duke wakes up to a complete ruin of the once pristine suite. After discovering his tape recorder, he attempts to remember what has happened. As he listens, he has brief memories of the general mayhem that has taken place, including Gonzo threatening a waitress at a diner,[2] himself convincing a distraught cleaning woman that they are police officers investigating a drug ring, and attempting to buy an orangutan.
Duke drops Gonzo off at the airport, driving right up to the airplane, before returning to the hotel one last time to finish his article. He then speeds back to Los Angeles.
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
In January 1976, Texas Monthly announced that Larry McMurtry had signed a contract to write a screenplay for a film adaptation.[3] Martin Scorsese, Ralph Bakshi and Oliver Stone each tried to get the film off the ground, but were unsuccessful and moved on.[4]
Rhino Films began work on a film version as early as 1992.[5] Head of Production and the film's producer Stephen Nemeth originally wanted Lee Tamahori to direct, but he wasn't available until after the January 1997 start date.[5] Depp wanted Bruce Robinson to direct, but he was "unavailable... by choice".[6] Rhino appealed to Thompson for an extension on the film rights but the author and his lawyers denied the extension. Under pressure, Rhino countered by green-lighting the film and hiring Alex Cox to direct within a few days.[5] According to Nemeth, Cox could "do it for a price, could do it quickly and could get this movie going in four months."[5]
Rhino hired Terry Gilliam and was granted an extension from Thompson but only with the stipulation that the director made the film. Rhino did not want to commit to Gilliam in case he didn't work out.[5] Thompson remembers, "They just kept asking for more [time]. I got kind of agitated about it because I thought they were trying to put off doing it. So I began to charge them more... I wanted to see the movie done, once it got started."[5] The studio threatened to make the film with Cox and without Depp and del Toro. The two actors were upset when producer Laila Nabulsi told them of Rhino's plans.[5] Universal Pictures stepped in to distribute the film. Depp and Gilliam were paid $500,000 each but the director still did not have a firm deal in place. In retaliation, Depp and Gilliam locked Rhino out of the set during filming.[5]
Casting[edit]
During the initial development to get the film made, Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando were originally considered for the roles of Duke and Gonzo but they both grew too old.[7] Afterward, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi were considered for the duo, but that fell apart when Belushi died. John Malkovich was later considered for the role of Duke, but he grew too old as well. At one point John Cusack was almost cast (Cusack had previously directed the play version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with his brother playing Duke).[8] However, after Hunter S. Thompson met with Johnny Depp he became convinced that no one else could play him. When Cox and Davies started writing the screenplay, Depp and del Toro committed to starring in the film.[5]
Gilliam said in an interview that his films are actor-led, and the performance of the two characters in Fear and Loathing is hyper realistic but truthful: "I am interested in real people in bizarre, twisted environments that force them to act... to react against."[9]
Dr. Gonzo is based on Thompson's friend Oscar Zeta Acosta, who disappeared sometime in 1974.[10] Thompson changed Acosta's ethnic identity to "Samoan" to deflect suspicion from Acosta, who was in trouble with the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He was the "Chicano lawyer" notorious for his party binges.
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The film opened in wide release on 22 May 1998 and grossed $3.3 million in 1,126 theaters on its first weekend. The film went on to gross $10.6 million, well below its budget of $18.5 million.[35] However, the movie reignited interest in Thompson's novel. Vintage Press reported an initial reprint of 100,000 copies to tie in with the film's release, but demand was higher than expected and forced the novel to go back to print a further five times.[36]
Critical response[edit]
Gilliam wanted to provoke strong reactions to his film as he said in an interview, "I want it to be seen as one of the great movies of all time, and one of the most hated movies of all time."[14] Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas polarized critics; on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 50% based on 70 reviews, with an average score of 5.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Visually creative, but also aimless, repetitive, and devoid of character development."[37] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 41 based 19 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[38] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[39]
In The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, "Even the most precise cinematic realizations of Mr. Thompson's images don't begin to match the surreal ferocity of the author's language."[40] Stephen Hunter, in his review for The Washington Post, wrote, "It tells no story at all. Little episodes of no particular import come and go...But the movie is too grotesque to be entered emotionally."[41] Mike Clark, of USA Today, found the film "simply unwatchable."[42] In The Guardian, Gaby Wood wrote: "After a while, though, the ups and downs don't come frequently enough even for the audience, and there's an element of the tedium usually found in someone else's druggy experiences."[43] Roger Ebert found the film disgraceful, giving it one star out of four and calling it: