Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson Review [2]
Posted by Jerome Cusson on 07.12.2008
Will the real Hunter S. Thompson please stand up?
Hunter S. Thompson...Himself (archive footage)
Pierre Adeli
Angela Berliner
Pat Buchanan...Himself
Joe Cairo
Eugenia Care
David Carlo
Jimmy Carter...Himself
Johnny Depp...Himself
Brian Kimmet
George McGovern...Himself
Victor Ortiz
Melissa Otero...Typist
Gilleon Smith
Jann Wenner...Himself
Alex Ziwak
Written By: Alex Gibney
Directed By: Alex Gibney and Hunter S. Thompson (various writings)
Running Time 118 Minutes
Rated R for drug and sexual content, language and some nudity.
Who is the real Hunter S. Thompson?
This is the question that festered inside of me as I tried to enjoy the latest documentary from Alex Gidney. Titled Gonzo, this is a film that seems to want to tell us everything about Thomspson through the rose-colored glasses of history. While I have always admired the work of Thompson, it is amazing to me that in everything Thompson has written and everything written about Thompson, I’ve never really got the sense of who this man is.
When you think about it, it’s amazing to think of Thompson as a journalist. He essentially broke every code and rule written for journalists to use in their toolbox. But I guess that’s the essence of Thompson. His brilliance came not from following the status quo, but having the ability to write whatever the hell he wanted and get away with it.
Sadly, Gonzo feels like nothing more than a textbook documentary. At just under two hours, the film wears out its’ welcome after about 90 minutes and then drags onto an ending that left me wondering what this documentary was actually trying to accomplish. The other Gidney film I’ve seen, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room had a very similar feeling. But as someone who didn’t know very much about the circumstances surrounding what happened, I was endlessly fascinate by how these corporate slimeballs could get away with what they did.
For someone who doesn’t know very much about Thompson, this is a pretty thorough examination of his work and his writings. But it never gives Thompson the in-depth treatment that a man of his stature deserves. If Gidney truly wanted to give a more in-depth and fresh look, he should have focused on Thompson’s two wives, Sondi Wright and Anita Bejmuk. By allowing them to open up and share their experiences, I think we could have learned so much more about who Thompson, the actual person was.
When I read or watch a man’s life being told to me, I want to feel like I’m gaining something. While watching Gonzo, I really didn’t. Only in the moments when I would hear his wives talk or the part where various talking heads expound upon Thompson’s run for sheriff of Aspen did I get the sense that we were breaking new ground and gaining some level of insight.
It’s not that I hated this film. I appreciate most of what it was trying to do. But as a Thompson fan, I can’t say I learned a great deal. It also seemed a little insulting that in multiple times throughout the film, the images and voice of Thompson were used as a means to relate them to our current situation here in the United States.
Maybe this is what Thompson would have wanted, but if I want to watch a film about “no end in sight” or how we as Americans were manipulated into a war with Iraq, I will seek them out. For these two hours, I want to hear about Thompson. If the issues he’s facing, like what happened with former Democratic candidate George McGovern in Campaign ’72, that I see no reason why they can’t be addressed. But to slyly disguise a political
statement as a biographical film seems highly misleading.
The other smaller item that bothered me was Johnny Depp as narrator. Ironically, it wasn’t for his narration since him being “the voice” of Thompson seemed appropriate but rather because there were a pair of times where he was randomly shown reading material. How many other times in a documentary is the narrator shown? It was very odd, and I got the impression that the only reason Depp was shown was because he’s a big Hollywood movie star.
The 411: For the non-Thompson fan curious to learn more about this enigmatic writer, I think there’s some value. For fans like and me and other diehard fans, I’m not really sure what you’ll gain from the documentary. While this is a solid and polished doc for the most part, it does suffer from being about 20 minutes too long. I would highly recommend this as a DVD rental or something to insert on your Netflix queue, but I certainly don’t think it’s worth it to pay for in the theaters.
