2008, USA
Adventure, Biography, Documentary, Drama, History
The rest of the world seemed to revolve slowly around a swiftly tilting Hunter S. Thompson. Oversized glasses and visor, cigarette hanging from its holder and slipping from his mouth while his hands hold a gun and a stiff drink. On a typewriter, he pecks out drug-induced drivel or a masterpiece for his generation so honest that it bleeds into fiction. Yet he found a captive audience and publishers foolish enough to wait for his overdue articles but shrewd enough to realize that no one else could write like Thompson.
Director Alex Gibney studies the unique author in Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. After earning an Oscar nomination for investigating a corrupt business in Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and winning an Oscar for criticizing a corrupt war in Taxi to the Dark Side, Gibney's most recent documentary focus would seem to fall outside of his political interests. Yet Thompson's vision for a better world was consumed by a political activism like no other.
In fact, a tighter focus on Thompson's influence on the 1972 presidential race between incumbent Nixon and Senator McGovern (ultimately collected in Thompson's book, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972) would have been fascinating by itself. Gibney instead chooses to provide a full chronology of the man who would become a caricature of himself, and makes a weak attempt for bookending the story between Thompson's prophetic vision of the future as predicted on September 11, 2001 and a comparison between the worlds of Nixon and Bush -- an interesting analysis that would have been better suited to a film that maintains its political tunnel vision.
Not that Thompson did not live a life worthy of being documented, but this two hour trip could have been split into two films. Part I covers his tour with the Hells Angels and the resulting discovery of his writing by emerging fans. Johnny Depp -- who portrayed Thompson as Raoul Duke in Terry Gilliam's interpretation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas -- narrates by reading from Thompson's work. Authors such as Tom Wolfe and Thompson's fellow journalists expand on the dichotomy between his artistry and his duties to tell accurate stories, while President Carter, Pat Buchanan and McGovern reflect on his distinctive reporting style. His childhood and comparatively sane adult home life are thrown in for good measure, and then destroyed in a blender with the evolution of Gonzo journalism after the teaming of Thompson with the sordidly psychedelic illustrations of Ralph Steadman (psychedelically influenced by Thompson's habits as a connoisseur).
Part II delves into Thompson's personal crusade to make a difference and become Aspen's first freak power sheriff, working off of a campaign that focused on drugs and the environment. Failing that, he would later become a one-many army for McGovern, praising his policies and slinging nonexistent mud at his opponents.
As per Gibney's style, the information is all there, piled up in talking heads and archive film, this time with a pop soundtrack on constant rotation. He understands the political world and it is clear that those chapters capture his interest the most, making the others feel almost excessive while falling into the trap of choosing chronological inclusion over the most interesting focal point. Yet, what would a story of Hunter S. Thompson be if it was not a little over the top?