I’m a fan of Hunter S. Thompson’s writing but to be honest I’ve always found his alliance of loyal devotees a little overbearing. This 2 hour documentary is made for them. Narrated by Johnny Depp, celebrity endorser of the ‘Hunter S. Thompson was God’ club, the film largely skirts over the details of Thompson’s formative years and family life, and indeed his actual life’s work – his writing – preferring, like his followers, to concentrate on the juicy details of his excessively hedonistic lifestyle. The drugs, the drinking, the guns and the girls – they all get the red carpet treatment. There are a few moments of realism when Thompson’s ex-wife, Sandi, reflects on how difficult it was trying to bring up their son, Juan, in a house that by all accounts was closer to a circus than a home but by and large it doesn’t do much to bring the viewer any closer to knowing who Hunter S. Thompson really was. Don’t get me wrong, the tales of drugs and deprivation are all very amusing and huge approbation has to be given to Thompson for engrossing himself so wholly in his work. But if you want to find out about the unique style of gonzo journalism that revolutionised political and social reporting and made it accessible to a whole new subset of the population then my advice is to buy the books and experience it for yourself.
Gonzo is like a patchwork quilt of various home videos, talking heads, interviews and archived footage which has all been sewn together in a very arty fashion, if somewhat erratically. The sequences of events seem to be a bit sketchy and jump from one crazy tale to the next, rushing over anything that hints at the possibility that there might have been a little more sustenance to the man and his life’s work than the parody of himself that he ultimately transmogrified into. The film has enough good clips and anecdotes to give most Hunter S. Thompson fans a semi but beyond that it’s a little vacuous and lacks the depth I would have hoped for from director Alex Gibney after such groundbreaking documentaries as Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. If you are intrigued by the lifestyle that Dr. Gonzo led, watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas starring Johnny Depp and the brilliant Benicio del Torro instead, it’s far more entertaining.
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is showing in the IFI until January 15th ‘09. Schedule available here.
Trailer:
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