by TERRY GILLIAM
with JOHNNY DEPP and BENICIO DEL TORO
The film opens with an off-voice, that we understand at once to be Depp's. We see him and B. Del Toro driving in a car, in the middle of the desert, with californian shirts and strange glasses. Depp talks : they are driving to Las Vegas, in order to perform a secret mission. A flash back occurs and we see both of them at the terrace of a café in Los Angeles : Depp is still telling. Del Toro is his lawyer and him, he is a journalist, because of a phone call, they have to leave at once to Vegas. So, they have to find in a hurry a car, a record machine, and... dope! And now we understand what really happens in this car : they are totally stoned and Johnny Depp thinks he is some kind of a hero, though he is a sports correspondent who goes to cover a motorcycle race in the seventies!
And all the film goes on with his deliria, with his paranoia and fear and loathing. Because it is a "subjective camera", we see everything through Depp's eyes. So, we can see his hallucinations ( there is especially a crazy and wonderfully shot scene where they are in a bar, with clients who are becoming dinosaurs, and another scene, where they are in a kind of a circus) and we understand the story only thanks to what he is telling.
It is rather a strange film. I know that in Cannes, not many people liked it. I was at the gala screening ( so with Gilliam, Depp- who is not that handsome!!!- and Del Toro) and even there, the movie was not so much applauded.
Actually, it is told, like if it was a detective story (you know, some of an old Bogart's film!), an impression which is emphasized because Depp is telling the story, and, in the end, we see he is writing it on a typing machine, and also because they behave like some secrets agents.
But there is no story : they don't do anything : Depp doesn't really cover the race, their actions aren't finished, when we think they are going to fight with somebody, they go... It is like a novel by Flaubert, the french novelist : his ambition was to write the story of a life where nothing happens. But all around there is the dope : and it is a pretext to some really amazing and wonderfully shot scenes. Terry Gilliam is, I think, an extraordinary film director. The actors are great too... but, I found that Johnny Deep was pulling his Johnny Depp! He did too much of things he did yet.
But there are also famous actors who appears : Cameron Diaz, Christina Ricci,...
Well, for my part, I didn't like the film! Anyway, I think that it won't be allowed to people under 18 in USA because of the... vomitig scenes!
