Comment

Dec 02, 2016Nursebob rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
To be fair, it couldn’t have been easy shooting a POV film about two men who chow down on mescaline and cocaine for breakfast and director Terry Gilliam, never known for his subtlety anyway, gives it his best shot with tight sweaty close-ups, hyperkinetic dialogue, and a host of CGI hallucinations which include melting carpets and a bar full of polyester lounge lizards who morph into a viciously amusing Jurassic Park parody. The neon extravagance of Sin City also provides the perfect backdrop for Duke’s musings on where America went wrong, its soulless spectacles and gaudy patrons taking centre stage while Viet Nam flashes on the television and images of Richard Nixon float in and out of reality. When our two addled protagonists crash a convention of narcotics officers it’s impossible not to laugh at the sheer irony of it all. But the manic energy wears thin after a while, as does Depp’s machine gun narration, and trying to glean the meat of Hunter S. Thompson’s source novel from all those trippy detours becomes tiresome. A runaway merry-go-round of a film which insists on feeding you just one more hit of blotter acid when all you want to do is slow down and get off.