Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Tom Thurman

Writer:

Tom Marksbury (writer)

Release Date:

12 December 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

A documentary on the life and death of Hunter S. Thompson.

Cast

Ed Bradley	...	Himself
Bob Braudis	...	Himself
Douglas Brinkley	...	Himself
William F. Buckley	...	Himself
Gary Busey	...	Himself
John Cusack	...	Himself
Benicio Del Toro	...	Himself
Johnny Depp	...	Himself
F.X. Feeney	...	Himself
Gary Hart	...	Himself
Art Linson	...	Himself
Leonard Maltin	...	Himself
George McGovern	...	Himself
Bill Murray	...	Himself
Laila Nabulsi	...	Herself
Nick Nolte	...	Narrator
Sean Penn	...	Himself
Harry Dean Stanton	...	Himself
Ralph Steadman	...	Himself
Anita Thompson	...	Herself
Hunter S. Thompson	...	Himself (archive footage)
Juan Thompson	...	Himself
Nick Tosches	...	Himself
Jann Wenner	...	Himself
Tom Wolfe	...	Himself

Runtime:

73 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

New Zealand:M

Company:

FBN Productions

Movie Connections:

Features Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

HST would have liked it.

I just viewed this film OnDemand. A weird and perilous 73 minute jaunt through several highlights of HST's life. While not as detailed as other treatments of the subject matter, this film makes up for its lack of depth by a sweeping breadth of scope, and is more pleasing to the middle-of-the-road HST enthusiast, with less drug use, less profanity, less crotchety-ness, more Hollywood types commenting, more clips from Where the Buffalo Roam and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and overall, a more human treatment of the man behind the myth that HST has become.

In this treatment, we see more of the Owl Creek Ranch, more of HST's first and second wives commenting, and more of Hunter at home than in previous films. Hunter appears to be more relaxed at home than anywhere else he has been interviewed. I particularly liked the airing of a couple of messages that HST left on answering machines... these give the viewer a feel for the real person and not so much the persona.

The film also gives reasonable closure for HST's exit from humanity... taking the Hemingway option in view of his increasing physical disability and age-related deterioration. HST was always in charge of his own freedom, and this chosen end was one more celebration of his freedom to do exactly what he wanted, when he wanted it. Thanks for a good film. I'll watch it again when I need my next Gonzo-fix.