Four Days, Three nights, Two Convertibles, One City.
— Tagline of the film
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a 1998 surrealist Black Comedy road trip film directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro, based on Hunter S. Thompson's legendary 1971 book of the same name.
The film follows journalist Raoul Duke (Depp) and Samoan attorney Dr. Gonzo (del Toro) as they take a trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in order to report on the Mint 400, an annual off-road bike race hosted by the eponymous casino, for Sports Illustrated. What results are several days of city adventuring by the two under a wide spectrum of recreational drugs in search of The American Dream. On the way, they get into various hi-jinks such as the trashing of various cars and hotel rooms, numerous strange encounters with unsuspecting individuals, and an ironic attending of the National District Attorneys Association's Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, all while exploring the death and aftermath of the 1960s counterculture in the age of 1970s Nixonian America.
Despite the original book's critical praise, the film actually had an initially mixed reception from critics, and was a Box Office Bomb among the theatergoing audience. However, the film had over the years underwent a critical reassessment and is now considered to be a Cult Classic within Gilliam's filmography.
Overall, the film version follows the book absurdly closely, with the vast majority of content unabridged from the book, dialogue and all. Depp, a close personal friend of Thompson, also gives a spot-on (and very informed) performance.
Also contains a famous line about Goddamned Bats, though they are not used in the film themselves.
Not to be confused with the Japanese band of the same name.
It's ok, he's just admiring the shape of your tropes:
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Lucy, the girl Dr. Gonzo seduces, is described as having "the face and form of a Pit Bull"— not words most people would apply to Christina Ricci.
- Adaptational Modesty: Quite a few scenes in the book where Gonzo (and sometimes Duke) is walking around butt naked have him partially dressed instead, probably due to the MPAA's discomfort with Male Frontal Nudity.
- Adaptational Name Change: Self-styled "drug expert" E.R. Blumquist becomes L. Ron Bumquist (Michael Jeter's character) in the film.
- Aside Glance: Duke gives one to the audience to acknowledge the In-Universe Factoid Failure that is the District Attorney's narcotics convention.
- Binge Montage: Showing the main characters going into a drug-fueled mania.
- Bittersweet Ending: The film ends on a high note with the dash to the airport, but before that we get several scenes of Gonzo becoming threatening and violent, most notably with the waitress in the diner and the maid who tried to clean their room. The drug-fueled craziness starts losing its entertainment value when it starts hurting other people instead of just Duke and Gonzo.
- Blatant Lies: Even in the middle of a performance to convince a maid Dr. Gonzo assaulted that they're actually law enforcement, Duke fires off an egregious example within the context of the film as a whole:Maid: I hate dope!Duke: So do we.
- Book Ends: The movie begins with Duke and Gonzo speeding through the desert to the song, Combination Of The Two as they try to get to their hotel on time. Near the end of the film, they are speeding through the desert to get to Gonzo's flight on time with the same song playing.
- Casting Gag: The real Hunter S. Thompson shows up in a hallucination/flashback sequence to his youth.
- Catchphrase: Dr. Gonzo prefacing advice to Duke with "As your attorney, I advise you to..."
- Celebrity Paradox: The Creator Cameo below, with Duke (the fictional character) recognizing his own author.
- Creator Cameo: The real Hunter S. Thompson shows up in a hallucination/flashback sequence to his youth.Duke: There I was... (sees Thompson sitting at a table) Mother of god, there I am! Holy fuck–?! Clearly I was a victim of the drug explosion...a natural street freak just eating whatever came by.
- Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Inverted with Duke's musings about what to do with the hitchhiker should he discover the truth about him and Dr. Gonzo. Most of it is mumbled to himself, roughly in sync with the narration; the line "Jesus, did I say that?" is the only thing he actually says out loud.
- Drives Like Crazy: Raoul Duke.
- His one year old Ford Maverick is battered, has a replacement hood and hubcaps, and smokes like a chimney.
- He drives the red Impala over a two foot wide concrete curb at 45 mph, backward, while in the rental agency parking lot.
- The white Cadillac convertible is in much the same condition as the Ford after 48 hours with him.
- Dutch Angle: Used frequently to convey the disorienting effects of the drugs.
- Everyone Has Standards: Duke is quietly disturbed by Gonzo's behavior towards the waitress in the North Star Cafe. Afterwards he is too uncomfortable to stay and finish his food, so he tries to steal the plate it's on. He makes it as far as the door, but another glance at the traumatized waitress makes him reconsider and return the plate.
- Funny Background Event: Pay attention to Raoul's behaviour when Gonzo's talking to other people, because you're going to laugh. In particular, when the both of them go to see a Debbie Reynolds show, Gonzo just busts out the locked entrance and takes out the security belt, starting to talk with the doorman. Raoul's just acting out, high on a bunch of drugs, while playing with the security belt, even struggling with a lady that wanted to take the belt out.
- Genre-Busting: This is a movie that must be seen at least twice, since the first time you watch it, you will not understand what kind of movie you just watched. Was it a comedy? Was it a political movie? Was it meant to be serious? Was it meant to just make you laugh? What the hell happened in the last third of the movie?
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Raoul Duke uses a cigarette holder and does quite a few ethically dodgy things throughout the film.
- Hypocritical Humor: A majority of the attendants and speakers during the anti-drug lecture can be clearly seen smoking cigarettes. While tobacco may not be a hallucinogen, it's certainly an addictive drug that has a history of causing premature death.
- Iconic Outfit: Raoul's aviator shades, hat (the green visor or safari hat), Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts and Chuck Taylor sneakers have become ingrained in popular culture.
- Jerk Ass Realization: a deleted scene shows Duke having one when he stops at a roadside bar run by an old man out of his barn. The old man introduces his teenage granddaughter and Duke makes a crack that implies that's a cover, and the old man is sleeping with her. The pair's disgusted reaction has Duke realize he crossed a line. The scene was cut because it wasn't in the original novel, and was also a less intense retread of the already shot diner scene.
- Kick the Dog: Duke abuses a dwarf by making him crawl for change in a flashback at the beginning of the movie.
- In Hunter Thompson's commentary track, he angrily insists that Depp improvised throwing coins at the dwarf, and that in real life he would never have done something so demeaning. He felt it was a deeply inaccurate moment. Depp insists he merely threw the coins upward in the direction of the dwarf, which appears to be a more accurate description of the event if you watch the scene.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: In the book, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo repeatedly visit the Circus Circus casino; in the movie, it becomes Bazooko's Circus.
- The Load: The impulsive and short-tempered Dr. Gonzo is almost singlehandedly responsible for all the trouble they both get into (Not that Duke does much to rein him in, mind).
- Loony Fan: Lucy's art consists of many, many paintings of Barbra Streisand.
- Mood Whiplash: When Dr. Gonzo threatened the waitress with a knife, you knew the slapstick was over.
- Noodle Incident: Lampshaded. Flash Forward and back again to the aftermath of the second hotel-room trashing and vandalism spree, including a mini-riot that ensues when they're caught vandalizing their own car (a brand-new Cadillac), an ape assault, dried ketchup stains that look like blood, a burned out mattress, and an entirely flooded room filled with a pyramid of TV screens. And Duke wakes up wearing a strap-on alligator tail with a microphone taped to his face. (Some of these incidents are recounted first-hand in the book, however.)Duke: (Dimly remembered flashback) You people voted for Hubert Humphrey! And you killed Jesus!
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The movie leaves out most of Duke's longer expositions on the 60's drug culture as well as his slow downward spiral towards BSOD after the diner incident.
- Rape as Drama: Subverted. Near the end of the film, Duke wakes up in the hotel room to see Gonzo apparently raping a woman. He was only physically assaulting her, so Duke is able to bullshit his way out of it. (She was the maid who had come to clean the room).
- Reckless Gun Usage: While driving to Vegas, Gonzo waves a revolver around and starts pulling the trigger. Luckily, it is not loaded. When trying to leave Vegas the first time, Duke blasts away in the desert — it's loaded now. After that we get the adrenochrome sequence, in which Duke snorts cocaine off the barrel of the gun, which is held by Gonzo.
- Road Trip Plot
- Running Gag: Any time Duke or Gonzo freaks out in public while the other is in a lucid state, the latter will explain to the people around him, "I'm sorry, he's drunk" or "This man has a heart condition." It's surprising how often that seems to do the trick.
- Shout-Out: The movie changes self-styled drug expert E.R. Blumquist's name to L. Ron Bumquist, an obvious reference to another charlatan, L. Ron Hubbard.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The intro of the film shows war and protest footage to the tune of "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (even if it is a somewhat creepy, minor-key version).
- Duke hallucinates giant lizards mating in the hotel lounge as "Amore Scusami" plays.
- Stoner Flick
- Take Our Word for It: Both hotel rooms are progressively trashed offscreen.
- Undiscriminating Addict: Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson's Author Avatar) and his friend "Dr. Gonzo" bring a gigantic valise loaded to the gills with all kinds of drugs for their journey to Vegas, and at one point (while Duke is tripping so hard that he hallucinates Dr. Gonzo slowly mutating into a devil) they argue the idea of testing fresh pineal gland... as in cut someone's brain to get the gland and chew on it.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: The scene after the hotel room got trashed.
- With Friends Like These...: Duke and Gonzo.
- There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
