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GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
The romanticization of a man many sort-of knew
By CARA BAYLES
del.ico.us
reddit!
It's hard to go wrong when examining the life of novelist, inventor of gonzo journalism, drug fanatic, gun addict, shorts enthusiast and political critic Hunter S. Thompson, especially when you've got a narrator like Johnny Depp.
But Thompson was an enigma, and Gonzo does get tangled in that. It speaks of "two Hunters," the sensitive man who cried after the '68 Democratic convention protests and the shrieking scoundrel caught in gritty home videos. At some point, there's a shift in what is defined as the two Hunters, from his bipolar temperament, to the author and his gonzo alter-ego, Raoul Duke.
The film offers insight into Thompson's upbringing, though it skims over his two-year stint in the Air Force and his early journalism career, beginning, really, with his coverage of the Hell's Angels for The Nation. It traces his embedded journalistic approach with the Angels, his coverage of his own failed campaign for Aspen sheriff, to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his Rolling Stone piece-cum-novel on the drugged-out search for the American Dream.
But for the political junkie, the true meat of Thompson's career comes an hour in, when the film turns to his Washington coverage. He was entrenched in the '72 campaign trail, throwing his weight behind McGovern and starting a rumor that rival Democrat Ed Muskie was addicted to Ibogaine. Thompson's endorsement, his vehement hatred for Richard Nixon and the fictional diversions in his political coverage crash against his savvy understanding of political pandering, his dismissal of objective journalism and the urgency of his message.
Interviews include insight from George McGovern, Pat Buchanan and Jimmy Buffet. Fantastic stuff, but it's hard to tell how much of it is original. Gonzo borrows heavily from its predecessor films on the author. Instead of cutting from a talking head to a voiceover, director Alex Gibney often plays footage behind the interviewee (creating a nauseating moving postcard). That, and the distracting soundtrack of predictable '60s singles ("American Pie"? Really?) feel like Gibney's trying too hard. And anyone knows that's not what Thompson was about.
GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
RATED | R
NOW SHOWING | KENDALL SQ. CINEMA
