DC Area Premiere

Memo from the National Affairs Desk:
Academy Award-winner is creating a biopic of Dr. Gonzo. My editor has promised me the cover. My lawyer has advised me to buy more whiskey and cigarettes. My typewriter won’t shut up and let me do the talking. Wire more money asap.
End transmission.

GONZO, Alex Gibney’s paean to author, journalist, and self-styled anti-hero Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, is a multi-layered visual, literary, and musical journey worthy of a man who loved to shoot and aimed best with his typewriter. That’s right—for all of his exploits with guns, drinking, drugs, politics, women, and motorcycles, for the Doctor it all came back to the words on the page.  

Thompson created gonzo journalism, a harbinger of the currently popular “news” programs THE DAILY SHOW and THE COLBERT REPORT. But his work always had what Colbert calls “truthiness.” Note his comments on coverage of presidential candidate Ed Muskie: “I never said Muskie was taking drugs. I said there was a rumor he was taking drugs, and I started that rumor.”

Of course, Thompson didn’t merely comment on the news, he lived it.  Gibney’s film takes us on the ride that was his life, intercutting the clear analysis (or mad ramblings?) of the man himself with remarkably open interviews with his first and second wives, Rolling Stone editor Jan Wenner, illustrator Ralph Steadman and respectful opponents such as Pat Buchanan. Gibney also incorporates scenes from Terry Gilliam’s film adaptation of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, and uses the film’s star Johnny Depp to give voice to Thompson’s writing.

GONZO is a fitting testament to the controlled chaos of its larger-than-life subject.

-Patricia Finneran