Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Criterion Collection

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Criterion Collection
by Terry Gilliam

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DVD details

Actor: Benicio Del Toro, Ellen Barkin, Gary Busey, Johnny Depp, Tobey Maguire
Director: Terry Gilliam
Brand: Image Entertainment
Writer: Terry Gilliam
Producer: Elliot Lewis Rosenblatt
Producer: Harold Bronson
Writer: Alex Cox
Writer: Hunter S. Thompson
Writer: Tod Davies
Writer: Tony Grisoni
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-02-18
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion

DVD Reviews of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Criterion Collection

DVD Review: Pointlessness IS the point
Summary: 5 Stars

Similar to Fight Club, Fear and Loathing was unfairly treated by critics. It was labeled "Worst Movie of 1998" by lots of critics. It even got the "Pointless" label. It's really sad that a masterpiece like this got so much panning, because really, Fear and Loathing was INTENTIONALLY pointless. And anyone who has read the book would know this. In fact, with how many rave reviews the book got and how many negative reviews leads me to think that only idiots become critics.

Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas is not a drug movie. Sure it has lots of trippy parts and the two characters are stoned almost the whole movie. But this movie is about the American dream and how we look at it.

Raoul Duke is a young man with his sidekick Dr. Gonzo on a business trip. Along them is a hot convertible, lots of beer, Raoul's typewriter, and an entire suitcase of hard drugs. With the latter in mind, the word trip becomes a key word, as that's what they do. With time to kill in Vegas, Dr. Gonzo and Raoul go on a disastrous journey that involves misadventure after misadventure, bad trip after bad trip, which leads their lives into a downward spiral.

Fear and Loathing is disturbing, but just so funny all at once. Despite the Canadian "PG" rating on the back, this is NOT for the faint-hearted. But if you really look at it, we may never get a movie like this ever again. And the "White rabbit" scene is worth it alone... I was in tears by the end of that scene.

So if you can take a good film that's very unconventional you will enjoy this for sure. And remember, "We can't stop here! This is Bat Country!"

DVD Review: The most Hunter for your buck
Summary: 5 Stars

I'm not going into what this movie is about or how it is, since that's well covered ground. I will say, though, that the review Amazon's chosen to use as the lead description on this page is little short of insulting to this movie and its fans. Shannon must be some sort of an inbred monster from a desolate backwood to make the kind of backward slanders he does.
What this review's more interested in is why you should buy this particular version of this film. Obviously, you're a fan of the movie (or at least the book) or you wouldn't even be looking. Or maybe you're a Gilliam fan...or a Depp fan...or a Del Toro fan, for that matter. This film covers on all fronts, and so does Criterion's treatment of it.
There are three distinct commentaries to the feature: the director, Terry Gilliam; stars Depp & Del Toro, with producer Laila Nabulsi; and the crowning achievement, the Beast himself, the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
All three commentaries are better than you might expect; they're certainly better than I did. Gilliam's is obviously most concerned with the film-making aspect, as well as all the nuts and bolts of getting the movie made at all. It's interesting, if not terribly entertaining. The Depp/Del Toro/Nabulsi commentary is certainly the most interesting, but again not too entertaining; unfortunately, this is one of those times Criterion did 3 separate commentaries then spliced them together into a reasonably coherent whole. Lots of wonderful tidbits from all three speakers, particularly Depp and Nabulsi, who both have extensive and intimate knowledge of Thompson himself to inform their input. The last commentary, Thompson's, is a strictly-for-fans affair. Though not the incoherent rambling I was expecting from him, it is still a largely off-target thing, recorded with him, Nabulsi, and another aide viewing the film at what seems to be Owl Farm. This commentary is the reverse of the previous two: fairly entertaining, but not very informative.
There are also deleted scenes with commentary only from Gilliam. There are only about four, but they are fairly long and Gilliam gives interesting comments on all of them.
The entire second disc is a bit of a Thompson fanboy wonderland. I had a copy of the 1978 BBC documentary already, but it's nice to have a more durable copy, and it is really something any fan of the man's work should see. If nothing else, it's one of the few filmic documents of Thompson contemporary to his finest work. 'Hunter Goes to Hollywood' is a fun look at Thompson dealing with this movie and the team putting it together. Very entertaining, but not anything worth watching more than once (or maybe twice). There are some pieces from Oscar Acosta, the inspiration for Del Toro's character in the movie, and these are a revelation for the casual Hunter reader. Some additional artwork from Ralph Steadman, Thompson's longtime illustration counterpart, is a visual feast (and I should certainly mention the wonderful footage on disc one of Steadman illustrating the film title!) -- some published, some not, mostly at least rare. The excerpt from the Fear & Loathing... audio performance is...okay. If you have the disc, it's superfluous, and if you don't, you probably won't care.
The booklet for the set is THICK. I haven't read it yet (it's the only thing in the whole set I haven't 'done' yet), but I don't really get why Hoberman's Village Voice reprint/rewrite is what dominates. I'd have rather had Nabulsi do a little writing, as she's clearly in the know and could probably have made an even more significant contribution. The two Thompson pieces are 'Jacket Copy for Fear & Loathing...' which I've read somewhere before, and 'Instructions for Reading Gonzo Journalism,' which I may have read before. So, not anything rare, unprinted or even entirely necessary.
Overall, this is a must-have for Hunter Thompson fans...but not for anyone else, really. It's a greater film than it'll probably ever get credit for, but it'll always have it's most special place in the fans of Gonzo, and this is its best representation for that crowd.

DVD Review: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Summary: 5 Stars

Hilarious early Jonny Depp movie. Depicts the drug culture in a very humorous way!

DVD Review: This is Definetely Bat Country!
Summary: 5 Stars

This movie is the funniest movie I have ever seen. However, if you have never taken psychedelics or entheogens, then don't even bother renting it, because you'll hate it. This movie is the epic portrayal of where open-mindedness, curiosity, intelligence, adventurousness, and madness, all meet, here where they've always met.

DVD Review: this is bat country
Summary: 5 Stars

this movie is awesome if you dont own it , buy it . then eat some tacos .

Description of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Criterion Collection

Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 02/18/2003 Run time: 119 minutes

The original cowriter and director of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was Alex Cox, whose earlier film Sid and Nancy suggests that Cox could have been a perfect match in filming Hunter?S. Thompson's psychotropic masterpiece of "gonzo" journalism. Unfortunately Cox departed due to the usual "creative differences," and this ill-fated adaptation was thrust upon Terry Gilliam, whose formidable gifts as a visionary filmmaker were squandered on the seemingly unfilmable elements of Thompson's ether-fogged narrative. The result is a one-joke movie without the joke--an endless series of repetitive scenes involving rampant substance abuse and the hallucinogenic fallout of a road trip that's run crazily out of control. Johnny Depp plays Thompson's alter ego, "gonzo" journalist Raoul Duke, and Benicio Del Toro is his sidekick and so-called lawyer Dr. Gonzo. During the course of a trip to Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, they ingest a veritable chemistry set of drugs, and Gilliam does his best to show us the hallucinatory state of their zonked-out minds. This allows for some dazzling imagery and the rampant humor of stumbling buffoons, and the mumbling performances of Depp and Del Toro wholeheartedly embrace the tripped-out, paranoid lunacy of Thompson's celebrated book. But over two hours of this insanity tends to grate on the nerves--like being the only sober guest at a party full of drunken idiots. So while Gilliam's film may achieve some modest cult status over the years, it's only because Fear and Loathing is best enjoyed by those who are just as stoned as the characters in the movie. --Jeff Shannon

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