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.

To me, the best movies feel like dreams... or nightmares. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) is very much the latter.It is fearlessly ugly. The canted, garish visuals and weird voice-over narration make you feel as though you're on drugs like the main characters, and the trip is not a good one. The world of this movie is threatening. It's a world of physical and moral decay, the graveyard of the American Dream that Raoul Duke is searching for throughout the story.Some may find this movie obnoxious or trashy, and there are moments where it leaves you utterly exhausted. If you are a person who gets what I have often heard termed "Gilliam fatigue," then Fear and Loathing will push you past your limit. But I like how it dares to be grotesque. Had the filmmakers been any softer or sentimental, the movie just would not work. The movie can be hard to stomach, but an appreciation for dark, twisted humor can help this bitter pill go down.

I tried to watch this movie several times since it was released and I had to give up on it every time till now. It took me almost 20 years to force my self to see it to the end. I love both Depp and Benicio, and I saw almost every movie they made, but this one I simply hate. This is one of the most boring pieces of crap I have ever seen in my life.If there was anyone else in leading roles but those two I would rate it 0/10, but because of those two geniuses I have to rate it 4/10.

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was a movie that worked with the specific group of people that ended up making it, and probably couldn't have worked had they not been involved. Terry Gilliam's particular insane and surreal style worked incredibly well with this film, utilizing incredible vibrant lighting and psychedelic visual effects achieved digitally and practically, as well as almost constant Dutch angles and low angles and close ups and frantic movement, creating a constant sense of disorientation and really putting us into the mind of the drug addled Hunter S. Thompson, a journalist supposedly on a business trip. The film is visually amazing on every level. Johnny Depp is fantastic as that character, reportedly spending lots of time with him in order to get down all his mannerisms and the right vocal inflection, and delivering the best performance of his career because of it. Benicio Del Toro is fantastic as his "attorney", and even Tobey Maguire is even great in a small role of a terrified and naive hitchhiker. It also has probably one of the best soundtracks of the 90s, with each song fitting perfectly to its scene.But the film's exploration of America in the early 70s, and how this contrasts with the zeitgeist of the 60s, is part of what gives this depraved film nuance. The film opens with a montage of those protesting horrible injustices in the world, and a quote that I think sums up the two main characters pretty well: "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." Hunter S. Thompson, named Raoul Duke in this film, and his "attorney" Dr. Gonzo both dive headfirst into such unbelievable amounts of excess that everything becomes skewed and distorted beyond recognition. Most take drugs to get high, but for them it is mostly confusion, fear, and loathing. But their twisted view of the world is an escape from the harsh and oppressive reality of the world they live in. There is a great moment near the middle of the film in which Raoul emerges from the haze of his drug trip and has a moment in which he reflects upon the state of his existence at that moment. He mentions how the 60s were a time that everyone felt they were all in it together, standing up against the oppressive forces of the world and whatever they were doing, they were doing it right. The drugs they took at that time were a symbol of the peek that they had reached, bringing them together and symbolizing peace, while the drugs that they were taking now only gave them negative consequences. They had fallen from the grace of the 60s and were only now beginning to realize the falseness of the American dream, no matter how hard they striped for it. What they find out about the American dream is essentially that most will never stop searching for it, even if it died long ago. Through drugs and the rest of their escapades, they were desperately trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel that they had believed in so strongly during the 60s, but as we see, nothings really changed. The elite classes are shown as reptiles (literally) and hypocrites, distracting themselves from injustices in their expensive clubs, and pretending to be above marijuana smokers while smoking cigarettes. Ultimately what Raoul is doing with drugs is the same as what the average American man is doing in a casino, and what most of us are constantly doing: we're betting on the American dream, and losing just a little bit more each time. The characters begin in a downward spiral that may seem repetitive, but is also strangely honest.While the film can be disturbing, poignant, ironic, and disorienting, it can also be incredibly hilarious. The sense of humor is another thing that keeps the film afloat. It allows us to view the scrambled events and inappropriate behavior and desperation, and laugh at the absurdity of it all. The editing of the film makes the chronology of events and hallucination and memory hazy and borderline incoherent at times, but that's what is so amazing about this film. There was so much that could've ruined it, yet everything worked so harmoniously for this specific vision to create such an original, revealing, and distinctive vision of America.