Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas film review

certificate_18

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS

Director Terry Gilliam (Brazil, 12 Monkeys) adapts 'the book that couldn't be filmed' by maverick journo Hunter S Thompson, and many viewers, one suspects, will leave wishing Gilliam hadn't even tried.

Because this is one of those that you'll either love or hate, and within minutes of joining Johnny Depp in an open-top Cadillac on a desert highway, cigarette-holder clenched between his teeth, yellow shades dwarfing his face and fretting about an invisible flock of bats, you'll know without doubt which camp you're in.

Through a chaotic, near plotless collision of gaudy hotels, surreal imagery and manic acting, balding sports reporter Johnny Depp and his Samoan lawyer Benecio Del Toro experiment with every narcotic and mind-altering substance they can get their hands on, while ostensibly covering a convention in Las Vegas.

Regardless of the film's overall cohesion or quality, Depp and Del Toro supply image-busting performances (the former bearing shiny pate, the latter piling on forty pounds), with Christina Ricci, Ellen Barkin, Gary Busey and Cameron Diaz drifting in and out in cameo roles.