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GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON Send This Review to a Friend
Filmmaker Alex Gibney does a colorful job exploring the wild life of “gonzo” journalist Hunter Thompson—Doctor Thompson, if you please. A writer of provocative articles, many with brazen political clout, and a self-indulgent, boozing and drug-taking narcissist bent on creating his own legend, Thompson was at once intriguing and off-putting. His persona and talent both fueled and undercut his value as a writer. He talked of suicide, and indeed that’s how he ended his life in 2005, shooting himself while his family was around, a final selfish gesture of shock.
Gibney pursues his subject creatively, with a narration by Johnny Depp, interviews with those who knew Thompson, including two wives, his son Juan, artist Ralph Steadman, and also myriad film clips and audio tapes reflecting aspects of his character and his writing. One can feel amusement and also regret. When his writing was at his strongest, Thompson really had important things to say about the scene in America. He expounded his opinions outrageously with lacerating prose, hence the term “gonzo” given his style. But it is pitiful to see a creative person live a life on the edge in a manner that is destructive to him as well as to others.
The strength of the documentary lies in Gibney capturing the range of Thompson’s life. Although the film begins to feel overlong, it nonetheless is dynamic in all that it covers. It recalls that Thompson became known as Duke, the Uncle Duke character obviously built upon him in Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip. It recalls Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” upon which the film was based.
Some of the best parts involve his partisan writing extolling George McGovern as a candidate for president, and Thompson’s justifiably vicious take on Richard Nixon. There are admiring appraisals of the writer by Jann Wenner, Thompson’s “Rolling Stone” employer, McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, and most unlikely, Pat Buchanan, as well as many others.
This meaty section of the film recalls the tumultuous times of the Vietnam War and the importance of Thompson’s writing during this period. One wonders what he would be saying today about the Bush administration and Iraq. “Gonzo” emerges as one of the year’s most important documentaries thus far. A Magnolia Pictures release.
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