Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) on Netflix
Raoul Duke, a journalist, and Dr. Gonzo, his attorney, load a red convertible with drugs and head for Las Vegas. Duke is covering the Mint 400 motorcycle race there.
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- Rotten Tomatoes50%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1971, a magazine sends Raoul Duke to Las Vegas to report on the Mint 400 motorcycle race. His attorney, Dr. Gonzo, makes the drive with him in a rented red Chevrolet Impala convertible, and they carry a large stock of drugs bought for the trip. Riding on mescaline, Duke reports a swarm of giant bats and takes inventory of their stash. They pick up a hitchhiker, describe their errand to him, and he runs off on foot. Gonzo hands Duke some of the Sunshine Acid and warns that it may take hold before they reach the city. Duke, deep in the trip, barely gets through hotel check-in, seeing the desk clerk as a moray eel and the bar's other customers as lizards.
Cast
- Brian Le Baronas Parking Attendant
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando were originally considered for Duke and Gonzo, but both grew too old. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi were considered next, until Belushi died; John Malkovich was later considered for Duke and also grew too old; and Woody Harrelson was almost cast, but was already making Palmetto.
- Depp traded his own car for Thompson's red Chevrolet Caprice convertible, known to fans as The Great Red Shark, and drove it around California while preparing for the role. Many of his costumes are genuine clothes borrowed from Thompson, and the writer himself shaved Depp's head to match his own male pattern baldness.
- Del Toro gained more than 45 pounds in nine weeks before filming began, eating 16 donuts a day, and researched Acosta's life extensively. In the spring of 1997 Depp moved into the basement of Thompson's Owl Farm home and lived there for four months, studying the writer's habits and mannerisms.
- The Writers Guild revised its decision in early May 1998, giving screenplay credit to Gilliam and Grisoni first and Cox and Davies second. Angered at having to share credit at all, Gilliam publicly burned his WGA card at a book signing on Broadway on 22 May.
- Dr. Gonzo is based on Thompson's friend Oscar Zeta Acosta, the “Chicano lawyer” notorious for his party binges, who disappeared sometime in 1974. Thompson changed Acosta's ethnic identity to “Samoan” to deflect suspicion from him, as he was in trouble with the Los Angeles County Bar Association.
- For the scene where Duke hallucinates a lounge full of lizards, the production was supposed to have 25 animatronic reptiles but only received seven or eight. Motion-control techniques and multiple camera passes, with the lizards put in different costumes each time, made it look like a whole room of them.
- Gilliam could not pay the $300,000 that the rights to the Rolling Stones' “Sympathy for the Devil” would have cost, half of the entire soundtrack budget, even though the song plays a prominent role in the book.
