Rating: 
Summary: Truly Amazing
Review: This is the best movie that i have seen in the last couple of years at least. It captured me like no other movie has, in the longest time. The acid trips, and all of the drugs that these 2 guys take is just the funniest thing ever. The movie is just psychadelic in the best way. For one thing they are tripping on drugs the whole time, and then the director makes the whole scene:the floor, the people just seem tripped out and in the coolest patterns ever. If you don't like this movie you probably have never done any drugs in your life, and therefore you wouldn't get it. But this movie is extreme!You have to see it.
Rating:
Summary: A poorly-recieved but hilarious adaption of the classic book
Review: Although this extremely funny and surreal film was not exactly what you'd describe as either a commercial or critical hit on its release, with several reviewers comparing it to Hunter S. Thompson's book (from which it was adapted) and deciding it was awful, many people (myself included, as you can see by the five stars above this review) would describe it as a classic chunk of modern cinema.Wisely keeping faithful to the masterful novel, the film cut-and-pastes several pieces of it for Johnny Depp's voice-over, most memorably in the opening scene, in which he and Benicio DelToro cruise down a desert highway in a red convertible. Altogether now: "We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold ..." Like many of the best films (such as Withnail & I, Funny Games and Trainspotting), the plot is minimal: a sports journalist and his overweight, Samoan attorney go to Las Vegas to report on an off-road race and take copious amounts of drugs. That's it - but who said movies need even a half-decent plot to be great? Fear & Loathing does just fine, mainly due to the hilarious script - but let's not forget Depp and DelToro's incredible potrayals of the fiendishly lovable (or should that be lovably fiendish?) pair, and massive credit is of course due to director Terry Gilliam for taking an "unfilmable" book and making an amazing picture. If there is any justice in the world, people will take another look at this fantastic, drug-addled nightmare and decide that it wasn't actually so bad after all. But it's still not as good as the book ...
Rating: 
Summary: Don¿t see this straight
Review: Funny, garish version of the Hunter S. Thompson novel directed by Terry Gilliam with the usual Gilliam brush strokes: cluttered sets, Monty Python remembrances, funky camera angles, relentless energy and a satirical eye. His "shoot me if you find a plot," and "torture me first if you find a subplot" style is regressed to after the agreeable hiatus of "12 Monkeys." Of course such a chaotic style goes well with gonzo journalism on a bad acid trip-a VERY bad acid trip. Johnny Depp plays Hunter S. Thompson as Doonesbury's Duke with the FDR cigarette holder and pastel shades. Benicio Del Toro is offensively loutish as Dr. Gonzo, a fake Samoan from East L.A. or thereabouts. Most of this is pretty "bad," but Depp got the cartoon character down pat. The psychedelic and day-glow sets, populated with lizards and ugly Americans, splashed with glaring reds and pinks, etc., captured well not only the "fear and loathing" but the seventies Las Vegas milieu as well. The voice overs from the novel seemed a bit miraculous in the movie since at no time is Duke ever coherent or sober enough to write. Piping Debbie Reynolds's "Tammy's in Love" into the Duke/Gonzo hotel room amid the brain cell mayhem was an inspired cultural juxtaposition. Ditto for the Barbra Streisand portraits. Best scene: Gonzo and Duke watching a clip from "Reefer Madness" at the narc's convention. Second best scene: Duke being admired by the highway patrolman who wants a kiss. Most fun: trash driving those two big Caddy convertibles. One of the amazing things about Gilliam is how he can make fun of people without their seeming to notice. Hunter S. Thompson looks like an idiot here, and Gilliam is really satirizing the sixties/early seventies drug culture just as surely as he trashes the cops. His rapier is razor sharp, so sharp you don't feel it until you look down and see the blood on your hand.
Rating:
Summary: If you don't like it, you don't get it.
Review: After seeing this movie 50+ times, I am still amazed at what has been captured and the places this film takes you. As some people have stated before wrongly I might add, this film does not promote drug use, on the contrary, it brings the mind to the brutish reality of the pain of drugs and implants it in yor mind. If you don't "get" this movie it is because you haven't really experienced the brillience of every scene and where it takes you. A masterful movie done by a master.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: By far the very best adaptation of a book ever filmed.(Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five being a close second.) This film was bashed trashed and ridiculed by every critic in the contry. They were wrong. Terry Gilliam is the finest director working today. He has taken a classic work of American literature and made a movie that ACTUALLY RESEBLES the source material!! Unheard of in Hollywood I know, but Gilliam has always been on the fringe. No, this film isn't for everyone. It's based on the hazy rememberings of an eccentric on psychadelic drugs. Thats what it feels like, but it is supposed to feel that way. Depp and Del Toro are brilliant. Giliiam is in top form. Read the book, watch the movie. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
Rating:
Summary: True to Gonzo journalism
Review: I dont understand how most of the critics hated this movie. In fact the late Gene Siskel is the only one i know who like it. Maybe its because the story dosnt have any real moral or message in it, just like the book it only reports what happens to these two fools. In fact this is one of the realist movies I've ever seen in the way that the plot unfolds and how the characters react to each situation with a twisted mind. The only thing i can find wrong with the movie is that the sound is rather dull, I have to turn the volume on my TV about all the way up before i can really hear anything.
Rating:
Summary: What?
Review: First off, if your looking for a sane movie don't even both with Fear and Loathing. The movie's two heros are the antithesis of modern movie heros. Depp is good, but his performance is a little forced. Del Toro plays Dr. Gonzo the way Hunter S. Thompson intended the part to be played. He is fat, loutish, drug addicted, and psychotic. Best Scene of the movie: Del Toro in a filthy bathtub wearing a suit, tripping his brains out while brandishing a humongous hunting knife, and Depp trying to convince him not to kill himself by throwing a plugged in tape recorder blasting Jefferson Airplane's "white rabbit" into the bathtub. The book was a classic, but I think the movie was vastly underrated, mainly due to the fact that Terry Gilliam is a master at capturing the essence of a work. Gilliam is a visual master and he truly explores the effects of the hallucinatory drugs that Depp and Del Toro are consuming mass quanities of. Obviously, this is not family viewing. This movie is kind of like taking acid, it starts off slow, builds to a climax, and then down to a lull. The thing is this movie is like taking 50 hits at once. ENJOY!
Rating:
Summary: This is an experience....
Review: Wow. I first saw this movie when i was stoned and even though i didnt catch any plot (and i still don't) I loved it! Just the way Johnny Depp looks with the sunglasses and the cigarette is enough to make you hysterical laughing. Definitly not mainstream, but of course it's a cult classic among anyone who did/does drugs and especially those who were a part of the acid culture of the 70s!
Rating:
Summary: This IS the American Dream in action
Review: While I certainly won't suggest that the movie is better than the book, kudos to Gilliam & crew for bringing Thompson's surreal imagery and complex tone to life. Casting was impeccable -- characters such as the hitchhiker bear an eerie resemblance to the Ralph Steadman illustrations made famous in the book. Depp turns overacting into an art form with his over-the-top portrayal of Thompson, and del Toro's performance as Dr. Gonzo is simply spectacular. The only problem with this movie is that it becomes readily apparent after about 60 minutes that the production ran short on money -- the effects in the first half of the movie (especially the hotel lobby and the cocktail bar) are top-notch, while the effects of the second half of the movie are not so spectacular (Gonzo's transformation during the adrenochrome trip, for example). Nonetheless, if you've read FLLV and are wondering just what Thompson was thinking, here is your chance to step inside the mind of an American icon.
Rating:
Summary: ROTFLMAO
Review: In case you don't know what ROTFLMAO means, it's internet shorthand for "rolling on the floor, laughing my a** off". I am not one to laugh out loud in a theatre and generally I don't go for comedy films anyway. "Fear and Loathing" is the exception to both of those claims. This is one of the most "un-politically-correct" films in years, and a much more realistic pictures of some people some of us actually knew in the 70's who took psychodelic drugs as a normal, everyday thing. Completely irresponsible and dangerous, the storyline is completely believable. Johnny Depp nails Hunter Thompson cold and is simply hilarious. Terry Gilliam practically turned the book into the script verbatim. In fact I've never seen a closer film adaptation of a book. I saw the movie in the theatres and this was one of the first DVD's I ever bought. DVD extras include several scenes not used in the movie and a making-of documentary. One really good deleted scene involves Thompson and Gonzo drinking at the police convention in Vegas next to a visiting cop. What's wonderful is the way these guys work off of each other as they develop a total line of bull to feed the cop who hangs on every word. It's a classic snowjob, but was edited out because it moves slowly and has no bearing on the actual story. Still, it helps to show the great interaction of the characters and you won't see it anywhere but the DVD. Isn't that what DVD's were supposed to be for ? I normally agree with many news reviews of movies but not in this case. This movie never got the accolades it deserved. Except from me of course. This is bat country ! Buy it, watch it, love it for life, but as Simon & Garfunkel once said to Mrs Robinson: "most of all we've got to hide it from the kids, koo-koo-ca-choo..."
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