Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (2022)

When you’re talking about drug films you can’t ignore the king of them all, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Much like its title, Fear and Loathing was feared by parents and loathed by critics upon its release.

Parents hated it.

It’s seemingly “pro-drug use” marketing and how the film feels like a light-hearted comedy where everyone happens to be tripping balls the whole time.

Meanwhile, critics hated it for its "all-style and no substance " approach earning it 50% on Rotten Tomatoes.

However, I pose to you. If you are Terry Gilliam and you adapt one of the foremost pieces of American literature that is also deeply controversial. Then isn’t it more than a little fitting to make a movie that half the critics loved and half the critics hated?

The fact of the matter is you can hate this movie for many reasons but to call it repetitive and soulless is unfair.

Cynical, YES! Soulless, absolutely not.

In reality, this is a film that skewers the American dream and eats it like a kebab along with everything you’ve ever hoped for and all the trauma you’ve tried to escape.

Fear and Loathing is based on a collection of articles by Hunter S. Thompson that were compiled into a novel of the same name.

It’s impressive to read the book and then watch the film and appreciate how Terry Gillium adapts Thompson’s descriptions. He turns them into the most interesting version of those descriptions while keeping the dialogue intact.

This is how Thompson writes today's clip:

I drove around to the Circus - Circus Casino and parked near the back
door. "This is the place," I said. "They'll never fuck with us here."
"Where's the ether?" said my attorney. "This mescaline isn't working."
I gave him the key to the trunk while I lit up the hash pipe. He came
back with the ether - bottle, un - capped it, then poured some into a
kleenex and mashed it under his nose, breathing heavily. I soaked another
kleenex and fouled my own nose. The smell was overwhelming, even with
the top down. Soon we were staggering up the stairs towards the entrance,
laughing stupidly and dragging each other along, like drunks.
This is the main advantage of ether: it makes you behave like the
village drunkard in some early Irish novel . . . total loss of all basic
motor skills: blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue - severance of
all connection between the body and the brain. Which is interesting,
because the brain continues to function more or less normally . . . you
can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can't
control it.
You approach the turnstiles leading into the Circus - Circus and you
know that when you get there, you have to give the man two dollars or
he won't let you inside . . . but when you get there, everything goes
wrong: you misjudge the distance to the turnstile and slam against it,
bounce off and grab hold of an old woman to keep from falling, some
angry Rotarian shoves you and you think: What's happening here? What's
going on? Then you hear yourself mumbling: "Dogs fucked the Pope, no
fault of mine. Watch out! . . . Why money? My name is Brinks; I was born
. . . born? Get sheep over side . . . women and children to armored car
. . . orders from Captain Zeep."
Ah, devil ether - a total body drug. The mind recoils in horror, unable
to communicate with the spinal column. The hands flap crazily, unable
to get money out of the pocket . . . garbled laughter and hissing from
the mouth . . . always smiling.
Ether is the perfect drug for Las Vegas. In this town they love a
drunk. Fresh meat. So they put us through the turnstiles and turned us
loose inside.

In 2020 the Weeknd released his album After Hours.

Along with a whole narrative that includes music videos, performances on talk shows, and of course his incredible Super Bowl halftime show.

The reason we mention this is that in the music videos, he references some of his favorite movies. His music video, Heartless, contains homages to Fear and Loathing and Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece Casino.

Guess Tomorrow’s Film