Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson

A hot July night. Rolling out of my driveway I make moves toward the GW bridge heading out to meet a friend in Downtown Manhattan. Speeding down the FDR with the East River as my neighbor I glance at the lunatics sharing the road with me. Business men coming off their jobs trading the lives of others, crazed taxi and limo drivers weaving in and out, and just those regular run-of-the-mill psychos waiting for you to cut them off just to blast you with angry horns are only some of the colorful paint drops in this canvas of a city. Why ignore them? Engage, speed, weave, curve quickly, be aggressive. I refuse to follow these crazies, I like to have the open road to the future, to what's next.

Eventually I make it downtown, where the numbered grid dissolves into a named mess of cross streets. The West Village is funny place, a strange collection of weirdos in costume, trannies in full dress, druggies, hobos, failing thriving artists, all looking for promise in a pessimist's world... good people. The place reeks of history, poor artists, and pot. It's hard to ignore the footprints of figures like Dylan and Warhol. I pull down cobblestone Prince street and as my car bumps along I try to look for a parking spot in this goddamn city which is harder than making it three blocks without running over a biproduct of the capitalist American dream.

I squeeze my car in spot that may not exist and make my way to the mulitplex. The Angelika is a fortress of indi strength. Its few theaters are filled with artsy flicks from documentaries to Asian fairy tales. Yuppies slum there in an attempt to show how "in touch" they are, and they are accompanied by the vagrant-looking film-junkies, there to prove their credibility as "true appreciators" of the art.

We, a collection of young professionals save for myself, purchase tickets and try to find some seats. The theater is a piece of shit, a run down old shadow of today's high-market multiplexes with plush stadium seating and endless sales pitches. It's simple and the perfect environment for the film we're about witness. The previews show nothing of the overbudgeted crap that hollywood's been dumping out recently, instead it sticks to arthouse presentations that only a few will ever enjoy. Eventually comes our feature presentation, a documentary of the late, great Hunter S. Thompson.

I did my best to give you a taste of the late author/journalist/miscreant's style, and to also introduce you to Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S Thompson. The documentary is the perfect way to experience the writings in the way in which they were written. The film does justice to size of the author, physically, culturally, and egotistically, but without fawning over its subject. The Doctor would have been proud to see his legacy treated as such, and by people who match him in stature (and not all of them fans). George McGovern, Pat Buchanan, Jimmy Carter, and Jimmy Buffet are just a few of the names to fill the slate of commentators. Hunter's wives and even his son Juan make appearances to discuss the man they knew intimately, and with the uniquest perspectives in the film, except for director Alex Gibney. Gibney unites the whole thing, illustrating Thompson from birth to self-inflicted death. He gets a solid boost from Johnny Depp's reading in his now famous Hunter Thompson voice (perfected in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and soon to be reprised in The Rum Diaries).

While the film runs about a half hour too long, it does still hold you until the end if you, as I am, are a fan of Thompson's life and work. It focuses mainly on his career as a journalist, his run for sheriff, and two of his famous works Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing: The Campaign Trail '72. Gibney relates the campaign footage to today's events, but not so much to be overdone, or overshadowing Thompson's story. It does also provide insight to his work with the Hells Angels and Tom Wolfe comes out in his classic white suit to discuss Thompson's attendance of the mixer with the Merry Pranksters, a rather compelling segment.

The man is shown mostly through the words of his beloved artist Ralph Steadman, as the Gonzo he was: fast, loose, angry at times, violent at some, but an artist and dedicated American throughout. His love of guns, drugs, and fast cars/bikes sometimes entertains but when he carries over to alcoholism and addiction, it saddens to see the star burn out. When eventually reaching his suicide, you aren't sure whether to believe that it was a cowardly move, or a courageous gesture by the deranged outlaw. In the end, his optimism for the future of America, and his love of freedom provide scope to view the upcoming election through. In the end, Gibney leaves the audience with a question Thompson was so fond of asking: what next?