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Just watched this crazy film the other day for the first time and after checking the room extensivley for bats, i came to the conclusion that this is a very rarely mentioned film that deserves a place as one of the best movies to be made in the last few years.

any other opinions?

Is it just me or did Johnny Depp deserve an oscar for his work on that film?  did the film even get a mention?

maybe i've been a little to much into the ether but not many people seem to know much about this film.  it wasn't even released on dvd here [australia], and i had to get it imported in, as part of the excellent criterion edition series.  its easily the best looking dvd case in my collection.  though thats not saying much.

quite an excellent purchase.  it certainly makes up for the complete crap that i've been watching lately ['wrong turn']

I rented this film once an found the first 10 minutes unbearable with the psychedelic dream like images. I just stopped and returned the film. Is the whole film like that? Actually after watching the very long exagerated heroine drug scene in PULP FICTION I just stopped it and hit the rewind button and have yet to see the ending.

well yes the film is pretty much like that.  it is quite disturbing and is pretty hard to watch, though it doesn't have too much more psychedelic dream images like the lizard orgy at the start.

it is quite a wierd trip i must say, and is an acquired taste [when i was watching it for the first time i found myself wanting to turn it off, but i have yet to do that to a film  and i thought it was well worth pushing onwards]

and you haven't seen the end of pulp fiction? that, scott, is a true crime.  its a great movie and the ending ties everything together nicely.  

is it the fact that it is drug induced craziness that makes these two movies seemingly unwatchable for you?

Anyway, it's always worth watching the end of a film you initially don't like, just in case it pulls out some good stuff in the end which makes the rest worthwhile.  

that being said, many films don't actually make it worthwhile, but thats why we are fans, i guess; we sort out the good from the bad.  

i give both pulp fiction and fear and loathing my personal thumbs up, but what you watch is your own business not mine, and i'm not going to try and force feed them down your throat: if you can't stand the film, by all means don't watch it, there's nothing worse than watching a film you don't want to, there's no way you can get a positive out of it in that case.

This film is bloody great, no more needs to said.
Except Scott sounds like a big time pansie.

I'll never forget the time I showed this movie to a good friend who was just in a car crash. He was on massive amounts of painkillers, and I'd been sucking down caffiene all day, so our rections sounded a lot like the characters in the film.

Him: "Whaaaaat? WhAt'S gOiNg oN??"
Me: "Quietyoufoolthisisthebestpart!!"

Great film, though. Depp is amazing, and Gilliam's stuff is always fun to watch. Also, if you haven't yet, listen to Hunter S. Thompson's commentary on the DVD. Dude is INSANE.

I agree with Scott.

I had so many friends tell me, "Dude you gotta see this movie!"

After about 10-15 minutes, I got up and left.  (I eventually did see the rest of it)

There is a reason Roger Ebert called it, "a horrible mess of a movie, without shape, trajectory or purpose--a one joke movie, if it had one joke. The two characters wander witlessly past the bizarre backdrops of Las Vegas (some real, some hallucinated, all interchangeable) while zonked out of their minds. Humor depends on attitude. Beyond a certain point, you don't have an attitude, you simply inhabit a state. I've heard a lot of funny jokes about drunks and druggies, but these guys are stoned beyond comprehension, to the point where most of their dialog could be paraphrased as "eh?"  
"The movie goes on and on, repeating the same setup and the same payoff: Duke and Gonzo take drugs, stagger into new situations, blunder, fall about, wreak havoc, and retreat to their hotel suite. The movie itself has an alcoholic and addict mind-set, in which there is no ability to step outside the need to use and the attempt to function. If you encountered characters like this on an elevator, you'd push a button and get off at the next floor. Here the elevator is trapped between floors for 128 minutes."

Go here to read the entire 1 star review:  http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1998/05/052201.html

I'm sorry but this movie is a piece of s**t....



Post Edited (11-27-03 11:42)

It kinda naseated me just watching FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, but I do want to give PULP FICTION a second go and possibly FALILV.

Useally films with drug content and drug use are a turn off for me. If that makes one a  pansie then so be it. :) I fear no person.

Certainly it is not a film for audiences but it is so dark, twisted and wild everybody should try to see it at least once. Both Depp and Del Toro are great, and there are los of amusing cameos, Gary Busey included.

i myself loved FEAR AND LOATHING and hunter s thompson's life as a whole is a damn interesting thing to behold. there are some good biographies out there.

if you like FEAR AND LOATHING then check out WHERE THE BUFFALOS ROAM starring BILL MURRAY as hunter s. thompson. the scene where he plays football in a hotel room with midgets is pretty unforgettable.

WHERE THE BUFFALOS ROAM is a good one that I've seen a few times on TV not long after it came out. I liked this film.

After reading ASHTHECAT's ebert review. I don't think I'll be watching FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, but I've been wanting to see the rest of PULP FICTION.

When will depp ever really be acknowledged for being a talented guy?

I enjoyed FEAR AND LOATHING a lot, but I wonder what someone would make of it who wasn't familiar with the book....I really should try to find that criterion disc, since I've been a big HST fan ever since high school.  

I view it as being a lot like Cronenberg's NAKED LUNCH, though FEAR AND LOATHING has source material that is a little bit easier to make into a film.  
Each is an interesting effort to make a film out of material people have said was impossible to make into a film.

For those of you who liked this Fear and Loathing, you are going to love Were the Buffalos Roam.This movie is also about Hunter and goes and tells another one of his crazy adventures, plus it has Bill Murray playing Hunter, hows that for cool.

Couldnt get past the first 25 minutes of this plotless wonder :(

great acting though.

WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM isn't nearly as good...though Bill Murray is perfect and carries the film into watchability.

I picked up Fear And Loathing on VHS about two years ago because a good friend of mine kept saying how fantastic it was.  I was still living at home at the time, and my parents decided to sit down and watch the flick as well.  They unfortunatly are not as "artistically open-minded" as myself and kind of ruined the whole experience for me.  

"What's happening?"
"Why is there water in their hotel room?"
"Why is he dressed up like a lizard?"

Yeah, you get the idea.  It was non stop question after question after question.  This kind of discouraged me about watching the film again.  It sat up on my video shelf for a few weeks begging me to watch it again.  I of course did, without anyone else around, and found that this film is truly amazing.  Johnny Depp and Bencio Del Toro (2 of the best actors today, IMO) are both fantastic in their roles!  Depp plays Thompson perfectly.


Fear And Loathing is definently a modern masterpiece.  The film is stylish, gritty, and completely entertaining.  I recommend it to ANYONE with an open mind about film.  Just let yourself get sucked into the film and you will enjoy it!

"Can't stop here!  It's bat country!!!!"

all you little f**ker who don't like this movie sound like a bunch of close minded, still sucking on your moms ttitys, p***ys ....  this movie was great and to the little b***h who couldn't handel pulp fiction... your just a piece of s**t... so go watch my little pony .. but thats probubly to crazy for you to..

Back in 1989, I was driving cab in Boulder, Colorado.
One day, 'round noonish, I get a call to pick up the Thompson party at a hotel.  I drive up to the sliding glass door at the back of the room & look inside.  Nobody home.  I park outside & call in -- are you sure I'm in the right place, etc.  As I'm calling on the radio, I see this balding figure popping up and down between the parked cars in the lot.  He walks over to the car, rubbing the top of his head like Curley Howard:  "You here for Thompson?  You here for Thompson?"  I said yes, I was, but I was asked to pick the party up at the doors here.  "No, never said that, hmmblrmmbr, no never said that.  I have to get some things".  I went with him into the hotel room & we proceeded to take out to the cab a podium with a reading lamp still attached, several dozen artificial roses, six or so exactly(!) half-empty bottles of Chivas Regal, and six to-go boxes of cold hamburgers and fries.
He had his girlfriend with him too.  
So used was I to mad behaviour on the part of my fares, that it didn't occur to me until the second or so trip back for Chivas Regal bottles who it was I was picking up.  Now, I had at this point had any number of celebs in my cab, and one thing I learned was that these people don't want a fanboy driving them.  You do your job & shut up.  So I held back re. the literary questions, etc.
We took off for the old Stapleton Airport, about a 45 min. drive.  He asked me my name & even though his blather took a rather odd turn, he never forgot it for the whole ride.
I'm reminded of an observation Bob Greene once made that Thompson couldn't be as messed up as he presents & still be capable of writing and analysis.  I think I beg to differ.  The guy was balls-to-the-wall whacko:  "Peter, it's a stupid, dangerous, HELLISH world . . . but don't let it FRIGHTEN you!!  We are not children!  What is history?  WE NEED TO BE TOLD!!" and so on . . .At one point his girlfriend said, very Valley-Girl, "Peter I think you can ignore anything Mr. Thompson has to say at this point".
He asked to go to a bar.  I said, if we go to the bar you'll miss your flight.  He then proceeded to open the back door of the cab, and brace it open with his feet, and start throwing the cardboard boxes of old burgers & fries out the door at other vehicles.  There was a lot of blowback.   I had old cold fries still embedded in various sections of the cab interior months later.
When we got to the airport, he bolted from the cab, by now dressed in his now familiar garb of pork-pie hat, aviator specs, trench coat, and cigarette in holder. Off he went, leaving his girlfriend to pay & carry what she could of the podium, plastic roses, and Chivas Regal.
It was about this time that he got in trouble for shooting a golfball with a shotgun while golfing with Ed Bradley in Aspen.  I was able to do a dead-on impression of him for a skit we did that week on HOMEMOVIES called "Dr. Thompson Presents Golfing With Machineguns", which is still being rerun here on Ch. 54.
I've also been up to his place in Woody Creek & driven past the gates:  Cast-iron welded sculptures of 2 African vultures are on either side of the gateposts, like a Charles Addams illustration.
And that is my story of my life with Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
peter johnson/denny crane

I tried to watch this once- I found it visually interesting with good acting... but I didn't get it.  My husband used to do drugs, so he got it.  Hey, at least I tried.

Scott- there's nothing wrong with knowing what you like and dont like in a movie.  Dont listen to those other guys.

Wow. I would like to meet some person similar to this guy.

Johnny Depp in preparation for his role in Fear and Loathing stayed in Hunter Thompson's basement at his home. He calle it "In the dungeon," Depp says. "It's a little room with makeshift bookshelves and a lot of spiders, and a small, little sofa thing that folds out into a bed, and this enormous keg of gunpowder, which they let me know about when I'd probably been there, smoking in bed, about five days."

Thompson is crazier than I could have ever imagined. Get this.

They both sit smoking Dunhills through the plastic filters Thompson is known for. Later, Thompson kicks the chair in front of him hard, straight into Depp's CD player. "Don't do that," Deborah says. Depp just laughs. "I'm edgy today," says Thompson.
"I was in San Francisco with you," Depp laughs. "This is not edgy."
A few minutes later. . . "OoooOOOOWARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!" Hunter S. Thompson lets out a scream that is truly primal. He must, I assume, be undergoing some unimaginable torment. Whatever it is that could quell such anguish, I'm sure it is beyond the knowledge of ordinary humans.
Fortunately, I am with experts. Deborah looks around, spots and hands to Thompson his missing packet of cigarettes.
"Thank you," he says matter-of-factly. Perfectly calm. He smiles naughtily. "Oh," he says, "the Alzheimer's will get you every time."
"Inexpensive, too," says Depp.
Thompson is encouraged to visit the wardrobe department. "What do you mean, `Try some things on'?" he roars. He points to the residue of the limo drink accident on his trousers: "Do you think these semen stains on my pants are wrong?"
He hits the chair again. "There used to be arms on chairs," he fumes. "The old days. Instead of . . . crap like that!"

I really had to no clue that Thompson was as crazy as he is. I mean, out of his mind crazy.

Quotes from http://www.angelfire.com/film/depfn/rs98.htm

I actually had the experience of watching this movie on two different levels- once as a "sober" minded individual (never having tried any drugs in my life except alcohol and pot)... and a second time, years later, after having tried shrooms and acid.

The first time I saw this movie I hated it. The second time I absolutely loved it. (Who didn't see that review coming?)

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is definitely on my top 5 favorites list now. Gilliam's direction is as close as you'll ever get to tripping without ever taking drugs. I really appreciate his vision- after seeing them first hand myself. But I can totally understand why others (who haven't taken psychedelic drugs) could hate this movie.

thanks for the story..i'm a big thompson fan...he's the kind of person that whether or not you like his writing...most of which i do...you can't deny that he is a larger than life character that has done a lot earth shaking in his time...i started dressing as thompson for halloween parties and in bars and always get offered free shots of Wild Turkey...

btw...i got the criterion special edition of the FandL dvd and it is great...the commentary alone with thompson drinking and calling depp's answering machine is hilarious...

mr. henry
www.310am.com

The very first time I saw the movie I was drunk and really didn't like the whole experience. It wasn't until I saw the film sober that I truly appreciated it. My grade: B+ ; )

Meh. The movie bored me half to death when I saw it on IFC and I'm the kind of guy who loves weird, strange, f**ked up movies. All seemed entirely too artificial for my liking, nothing to draw me in.

If that is the typical experience of a person on acid, I'll pass. My real life has been more f**ked up than anything in that movie could *ever* be.

this is the best movie ever made to watch high

..LOVE it

"this is the best movie ever made to watch high..LOVE it"


I 100% agree!! :-)

viva huelvaaaaa

I dont think its possible to get the full-impact of this movie unless you're on some kind of mind-altering substance. (in the case of any Gilliam flick, a few bong hits will usually do it for me)

oh yeah, dont do drugs

Great movie based on a great book. If you ever get the chance read it. This is probably one of the few "drug movies" that's worth watching. Johnny Depp deffinately gave an excelent performance but I think Benicio Deltoro (not sure if I spelled that right) stole the show as the samoan.

Otherwise drugs are for hippies and hippies suck.

God bless American education!

You are stupid to not watch the endings of both movies, just on the brilliant work of oblique shots during a drug sequence.