prakswal Adapted from Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 novel of the same name, Terry Gilliam's Cult-Classic 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' is Utter madness! Its bleak, high & absolutely nuts! But Gilliam's brutally honest Storytelling along-with Depp & del Toro's mesmerizing performances take this unusual film to dizzy heights.Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is not just a psychedelic comedy, but also an astute piece of literature-cum-political science on a period in American history that was just really strange. This is far from your everyday movie, and only for those with a deep appreciation for the diversity of film-making. The directing is fast paced with offseting angles a lot of wide angle lenses. Gilliam has a style which is unmistakable, it's like walking around inside of a Dali painting, everything is distorted and stretched to create a strong sense of surrealism. Yet his approach is much less offensive than Oliver Stone, who desperately throws every single filming trick at you repeatedly until you are pummeled into submission. Excerpt from "Movies that Moved with Prakash Silwal https://www.facebook.com/ektafilmsnp/

Tweekums Journalist Raoul Duke and his 'attorney' Dr. Gonzo are heading to Las Vegas; ostensibly to cover a desert motorcycle race but given the quantity and variety of drugs the pair have consumed things get weird before they have even arrived in Las Vegas. They only get stranger when they arrive; the hallucinations and paranoia escalate and strangeness ensues.It is hard to describe the plot as it is basically a series of weird things happening due to our protagonists' use of an industrial quantity of drugs. Terry Gilliam is just the man to bring such weirdness to the screen and he does a fine job directing. Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro impress as Duke and Gonzo; it is easy to believe that they are really on something! The rest of the cast, which includes well-known actors in some minor roles, do well too. There are plenty of very funny moments as well as some disturbing ones… I can't imagine many viewers will watch this and feel inspired to try various drugs. Overall I'd say that if you demand a solid plot you bay be disappointed but if you want surreal weirdness you won't get much more weird or more surreal than this.

ElMaruecan82 When it comes to Terry Gilliam, I noticed a strange pattern, either you have fans who claim this is the greatest movie ever, or one of the Top 10... or you have those who give it a 1 or 2, calling it a tedious mess. And the same goes with the movie "Brazil". Why do we feel the need to make these movies more brilliant than what they seem, just because Gilliam took artistic liberties, just because they deal with true, contemporary themes and just because they're trippy as hell, doesn't make them "masterpieces" for all that. Sure, they're "special", but "special" doesn't make a film "great" from beginning to end, with your eyes glued to the screen. There are two kinds of movies if you asked me, those where you press the pause button when you got to pee, and those where you don't care because you want to get through it or you know it won't make a difference, it's not like you're going to miss a big plot point. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was perhaps the only film that made more sense the less I saw from it, which is a unique experience in its own way. I didn't hate the film, it's well-done, well- made, fast-paced, and Depp is as funny as Del Toro is annoying but we don't see Del Toro much time so it's okay. I'm okay with the film because I try to look at the half-full glass. But Gilliam has a tendency to make the same point over and over again... and no matter how aesthetically stylish it is, redundancy can get on some people's nerves, even when they try to focus on the good parts. My favorite film is still "The Fisher King" and it could have done without the needless hallucinations (you know, the Red Dragon...). I have a feeling that Gilliam is one hell of a writer and filmmaker seriously, but sometimes, he's like his worst enemy. And movies like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" are kind of brutal, in the sense that they're confusing, but you're not even allowed to acknowledge it. I read all the comments, and it's like someone who thought the film was confusing as hell, just "didn't get it". Ebert takes a lot of the heat because he didn't get the film's brilliance. This is the man who considered "Leaving Las Vegas" the best film of 1995, "Crumb" was the second and the film also dealt with the influence of the LSD wave on American art in the 60's, Ebert also admired films like "Easy Rider" or "Apocalypse Now", he's a baby-boomer who gets more than any of us the pleas and pains of his generations, so I trust his capability to read between the lines and enjoy a psychedelic experience or a self-reflective portrayal of addiction that has a few social statement sot make. Maybe he did miss the point with "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", but I don't think the film ever has a point, it's about an experience, told from the same perspective by people living the same experience. It says a lot about but in such a way that it's only by going through the experience that you can appreciate it, it's a bizarre, tautological therefore pointless mess. I say 'pointless' because it's like the film is so intoxicated by its own exuberance, it doesn't even need an audience for that. It's like this guy who's being a total annoyance because he's too drunk, he makes unfunny jokes but he doesn't care because he's not aiming for laughs, he's wrapped up in his own twisted belief that he's the funniest guy in the world. So, you're the one supposed to drink so you can put yourself at his level and enjoy the jokes. I don't think a movie or any piece of art should rely its enjoyability on the use of some drugs or whatever to be fully appreciated. I don't think one should use tricks in order to enhance some creativity, if the real experience is integral to the one narrated through the film, what's the point? Now, I'm not trying to bash the film, if someone tells me it's a stinker, I'll probably defend it as a fan would do, but when I read that it's a masterpiece, I'm pointing out the weaknesses. I gathered that it was all about the self-reflexive experience, and there was no point other than the experience itself from these two guys' standpoint as a psychological microcosm of America's youth in the late 60's... but the film "Easy Rider" did pretty much the same thing without being too verbal or psychedelic in the treatment of the story. Gilliam is an artist, no doubt about that, and he's a man of fantasy, but fantasy is tricky: to make it work, you must treat it as seriously as another genre, if you handle fantasy in a fantasist way, it's very likely to disorient the viewers and undermine the fantasy meant as the core of the story, it's like directing style stealing the story's thunder.

Movie Enthusiast This is one of the most hilarious films i have ever seen. It is also one of my top then favorite movies of all times. The book that it is based on is equally good. I have watched this movie many times, book in the hand, following the chapters in the book. And both movie and book are good each in their own right. The silver screen's favorite hearth rob, pretty boy Johnny Depp is totally unrecognizable as a bald, paranoid, out-of-it reporter. He is funny as hell. Benicio del Toro who plays second fiddle is not bad either in funny department.Basically, it is a road trip, story about a journalist who is trying to get to his assignment, to cover some sort of boring race, but is hell bent on drugs and gets into all sorts of sticky situations - a lot of them engineered by his equally irresponsible friend, played by del Toro. It is also a comedic cult movie about a certain era in American history. The script, the directing, acting, visuals, sense of humor - all supreme. A must see!