This is one of the funniest, most satisfyingly outlandish movies I've seen in a while. I love it for the same reason most critics and audiences hated it-it's rambling, incoherent, and overblown. Johnny Depp is simply brilliant in his performance, cartoonizing the character but in a way that enlivens the whole film and keeps you mesmerized and laughing out loud at this most eccentric creature Raoul Duke. Benicio Del Toro's excessive mumbling got in the way of an otherwise good, intense performance(Between this movie and the Usual Suspects, he has about two sentences worth of intelligible dialogue). I love his performances but I never know why. The situations and set pieces were all inventive, especially the scene when they first check in to the hotel and spaz out at the bar(perfect recreation of being inebriated in a crowd, where the people around you seem to be bizarre caricatures, talking their own language). Same with the hilarious Drug Convention scenes.
It's understandable that fans of the book(which I have yet to read) are disappointed (I read L.A. Confidential almost ten years ago and I found last year's critically hyped movie an overly sanitized, pale shadow of the brutal book) but I'm glad I came to this movie without the prejudice and expectations. This is my favorite Terry Gilliam movie, in fact-funnier than Brazil, more fantastical than even Baron Munchausen- although bingeing on psychedelics on the Vegas Strip is not quite as fun as it looks in this movie. The movie(by way of the book) even manages to sneak in some pointed criticisms against the kind of aimless and/or idealized hedonism that the characters engage in.
I highly recommend this movie.
It's understandable that fans of the book(which I have yet to read) are disappointed (I read L.A. Confidential almost ten years ago and I found last year's critically hyped movie an overly sanitized, pale shadow of the brutal book) but I'm glad I came to this movie without the prejudice and expectations. This is my favorite Terry Gilliam movie, in fact-funnier than Brazil, more fantastical than even Baron Munchausen- although bingeing on psychedelics on the Vegas Strip is not quite as fun as it looks in this movie. The movie(by way of the book) even manages to sneak in some pointed criticisms against the kind of aimless and/or idealized hedonism that the characters engage in.
I highly recommend this movie.