So it's been a while but I'm going to review Gonzo considering it just came out in AZ...
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson is a good documentary that is never able to reach the level of greatness. For a man, or as the film tends to portray him as, a character, so stubborn and charismatic it's hard to watch a documentary on him. While we have some video of him, the pictures and descriptions of him tend to over exaggerate what one would think humanly possible of Thompson.
The film is directed by Alex Gibney who also directed last years Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the The Room, is a confident man who knows the source material well. Some moments though feel rough, such as when the movie goes over Thompson's political run near the end of his career. These moments felt necessary, but derail the end of the film. It's going at a steady pace of Bob Dylan and Gonzo art, going through the mans beginnings and drug use. Then in one fell swoop turns to his politics and the end part of his life which is relatively uninteresting.
Johnny Depp does the narration for the films beginning (he played Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, they even show a clip of that film) and for the most part he does a good job, although there is always the feeling of this being a movie about Johnny Depp and not Hunter S. Thompson, as most of Depp's movies do. Depp adds the same overly dramatic tone he does to most of his works, not to say that doesn't work for him, but I'd say a restrained Johnny Depp is a good Johnny Depp for this film. The beginning is good though and shows us his life with Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and their raping and pillage mentality. Gibney is still able to work in enough celebrities, archival footage, decent songs, Gonzo art, and readings from Thompsons articles that the end result is a polished if mildly boring docu-bio.
Check Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson on DVD, it's not worth the price of admission though I'm afraid. If your a Thompson enthusiast then it'll be enjoyable for you, but still probably preaching to the choir. Grade - B
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson is a good documentary that is never able to reach the level of greatness. For a man, or as the film tends to portray him as, a character, so stubborn and charismatic it's hard to watch a documentary on him. While we have some video of him, the pictures and descriptions of him tend to over exaggerate what one would think humanly possible of Thompson.
The film is directed by Alex Gibney who also directed last years Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the The Room, is a confident man who knows the source material well. Some moments though feel rough, such as when the movie goes over Thompson's political run near the end of his career. These moments felt necessary, but derail the end of the film. It's going at a steady pace of Bob Dylan and Gonzo art, going through the mans beginnings and drug use. Then in one fell swoop turns to his politics and the end part of his life which is relatively uninteresting.
Johnny Depp does the narration for the films beginning (he played Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, they even show a clip of that film) and for the most part he does a good job, although there is always the feeling of this being a movie about Johnny Depp and not Hunter S. Thompson, as most of Depp's movies do. Depp adds the same overly dramatic tone he does to most of his works, not to say that doesn't work for him, but I'd say a restrained Johnny Depp is a good Johnny Depp for this film. The beginning is good though and shows us his life with Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and their raping and pillage mentality. Gibney is still able to work in enough celebrities, archival footage, decent songs, Gonzo art, and readings from Thompsons articles that the end result is a polished if mildly boring docu-bio.
Check Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson on DVD, it's not worth the price of admission though I'm afraid. If your a Thompson enthusiast then it'll be enjoyable for you, but still probably preaching to the choir. Grade - B
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