Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas (1998) 1/2 *

Directed by:  Terry Gilliam

Starring:  Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, Cameron Diaz, Craig Bierko

Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas is a rambling, incoherent mess of a movie about two rambling, incoherent people.     Perhaps its only objective was to show its two main characters in varying states of intoxication, but if you're looking for entertainment, you've come to the wrong place.     Fear and Loathing is a film without structure or insight.     Being asked to follow along with these two characters for two hours is sadistic.     I can't imagine what director Gilliam and his stars thought audiences would gain from the experience.    

Based on a novel by Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing follows the misadventures of Raoul Duke (Depp) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (Del Toro) as they trash Las Vegas while ingesting enough drugs to kill a small horse.     What plot I could gather was that Duke was sent to Vegas to cover a dirt bike race and he doesn't much like such assignments.     Duke narrates the proceedings, but trying to understand what he's talking about is a fool's errand.     He says nothing that is funny, interesting, or intelligible.      Depp's voice sounds a whole lot like his Tonto voice from 2013's The Lone Ranger, which is not a good thing.    It's distracting.    

Duke and Dr. Gonzo aren't developed into people we should care about and therefore want to follow into their drug-induced hazes.     Watching them is like, well, hanging around drunk or stoned people when you haven't been drinking or using drugs.    If I encountered them, I'd look for the nearest exit and slip away quietly.     Perhaps those who have been in such states can relate to Duke and Dr. Gonzo and laugh.     I pity them.

The situations, setups, and payoffs are all about the same here.     We never get the opportunity to see or understand what drives these men to ingest dangerous quantities of drugs.     There is no humor or point of view like Cheech and Chong would provide.     Say what you will about whether Cheech and Chong movies are successful, their mission is to show drug use in a humorous light.    They are the butts of the joke and understand that.     Fear and Loathing doesn't explore, it simply shows these guys destroying themselves.      Nothing is fun and we don't care what happens.    We only hope that the movie will soon be over.  

What a shame.    There are many talented people who worked on this film whose careers ultimately survived, but it's hard to pinpoint what drew them to it.     There are no people with any depth to care about, no story, no coherence or structure.     Duke parades around wearing hats which conceal his baldness and walks like someone trying to walk erect for the first time.     His relationship with Dr. Gonzo isn't explained.    I'm guessing they are just two guys who find they have one thing in common and do that to excess.     If Hunter S. Thompson consumed drugs like this daily, it's astounding he lived as long as he did.     Perhaps the book explains more and looks at these events with insight, but I'll be damned if I could find any of that here.