Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

1. I thought the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was very good. It had many humorous parts and was a very good look on what people experience and act like when they are on drugs. Johnny Depp is the only actor who could portray the character of Raoul Duke because of his quirky nature. Also, Terry Gilliam, who is known for his surreal direction, is the only director who could pull of a movie based on Hunter S. Thompson’s works this successfully. This is definitely a movie I can watch again and again.

2. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas begins with the line “He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo make beasts of themselves by (obviously) taking a lot of drugs, such as acid, cocaine and ether. In fact, when Duke trips out on the substance “andrenichrome.” he visualizes Gonzo as a hairy beast-like demon with horns. Although the drugs give the two characters temporary relief, the drugs in actuality affect them in negative ways. When they get high off the drugs, they start hallucinating and do strange things. For instance, at the beginning of the movie, Duke thinks he sees bats swarming around him and constantly keeps swatting the imaginary creatures away. In another scene from the movie, Gonzo, who is on acid, is seen in a bathtub full of water in an effort to kill himself. The drugs they take also affect those around them. The best example of this is Lucy, a sheltered girl from Montana whom Gonzo meets (and drugs) on a plane when he returns to Las Vegas after abandoning Duke. The drugs will have a lasting effect on them for the remainder of their lives. This constant use of drugs probably contributed to Hunter S. Thompson’s Hemingway-esque suicide on February 20, 2005.