So a few years ago I sat down and tried to watch this movie. So many people told me it was good and that I would like it. So I popped it in and sat down to...something unexpected. I got twenty minutes in and couldn't take anymore. It was all over the place, nothing seems to be making sense and I was getting bored.
Well a while ago I recorded it onto my cousins DVR, and today thought was a good time to watch it. The beginning twenty minutes are exactly as I remembered them. Around thirty five minutes in things start to come together if only barley, like trying to glue a ripped up blanket together. There seems to be no plot, just people taking drugs which just gave me flashbacks of Columbia student films, but obviously this is much better. I think the reason I didn't take to the movie was that there are no genuine moments in it, these are sick, and often depraved people who aren't themselves. You only know them as coked out, acid dropping, ether sniffing losers who cant do even the simplest of tasks.
There was one genuine moment, and it comes right at the end, the second to last shot is of Johnny Depp driving out of the city, the camera is on him the whole shot and he is smiling and only then did I see anything past the drug fueled paranoia. Now all that aside it is a very fun movie. Terry Gilliam knows how to make this kind of film and does very well with it, considering they wanted to originally have it as an animated film, and even Hunter S. Thompson agreed it would be more real as a cartoon. It still does better than other drug centered narratives. Since there is no seeming plot what you do get out of it is a very real depiction of the American Dream, the falling apart of the Hippie/Love movement and what Vegas represents. But the problem with that is that its difficult to work into this story, Depps voice over has to say those things to portray his opinions on the subjects.
The camera constantly moves and is almost always on a wide angle lens, which works amazingly. It gives the viewer a very immediate sensation of being on drugs and a certain discombobulation. This is no vanity project, it paints all the people in it to be bad people, or at least severely flawed.
The acting was great, Del Toro, and Depp do a great job with what I'm guessing must have been a very hard role to take on. There are several interesting cameos in it, pointless cameos, but most are. I enjoyed it and found it very interesting, would I want to watch it again? Ask me again in ten years. 8/10 stars.
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