'Where are my f**king golf shoes?!!' (Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (DVD))

Member Name: Moominpapa

Product:	Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (DVD)
Date:	15/01/01 (132 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hilarious

Disadvantages: Too distasteful for some

Surrealist films were virtually unknown until the nineties, as film-makers usually stuck to action, comedy, and romance. The recent bizarre film releases have usually been so due to the books they have been based on. Fight Club, for instance was based on Chuck Palanhiuk’s fantastic novel by the same name, and the screen version is nowhere near as confusing or surreal as the book. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was also based on a novel, and is one of the strangest and bowl prolapsingly hilarious films I’ve ever seen.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is technically a road movie and as Easy Rider demonstrated before it, road movies are doped up to the eyeballs with narcotics. In fact just about every single drug imaginable is snorted, swallowed, and taken intravenously in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It is a sad fact that, if this film had been made just two or three years later (i.e. present day), then it won’t have been banned and forgotten. This is because BBFC have changed their censorship laws. Censorship now allows films to contain more violence, more swearing and more sex and nudity, but the new laws are very tight on drug abuse. Films such as Trainspotting, and with as little drug abuse as Pulp Fiction could never be released today. Oh how I loath censorship.

Johnny Depp (in an unusual role) and Benicio Del Toro star as two junkies in the 1970s. Considering Depp’s usual roles, such as those in Edward Scissor-hands, or Sleepy Hollow, playing a crazy junky sees him showing that he is both multi-talented and up for a laugh. There are also many other famous faces which crop up, such as Cameron diaz and Christina Ricci (in her first ‘adult’ movie). Depp and Del Toro are fabulous when it comes to pretending to be stoned, especially Depp’s hilarious uneasy walking pattern.

The plot (or what there is of it) sees magazine column writer Raoul Duke (Depp) and Dr. Gonzo (Del Toro), his lawyer, on a roa
d trip to Las Vegas. Duke has been sent to do a report on the Police Narcotics Conference, but is carrying round a briefcase loaded with drugs and both him and Dr. Gonzo are extremely stoned. What follows is two hours of mind-boggling camera views, hilarious gange induced hallucinations and an ounce of drama, which involves Dr. Gonzo attempting to commit suicide.

Direction

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python member Terry Gilliam and he also helped write the screenplay from the book. The direction often allows the viewer to see the world through the eyes of a dope fiend, which is a treat for anyone. Using wavy camera lenses and beautifully bright colours, Gilliam shows that he is capable of fantastic direction and obviously understands what life was like in the seventies. Although many will find this film distasteful, and I mean many, the few who see the joke behind it all will be laughing for the entire two hours.

Memorable scenes

To pick one or two, the ‘lizard’ scene, in which Duke thinks all the people at the bar are lizards and demands where his golf shoes are induces jack-knifing fits of laughter. The rotating bar and the mess made in the hotel rooms are also works of comic genius.

Summary: