I Think I'm Getting The Fear.

Oh, to be inside Terry Gilliam's head. Actually, scratch that. I think it would probably be terrifying. So, oh to be in Hunter S Thompson's head. Wait, no, scratch that too. God knows what state it's in these days.

Obviously, the film where these two crazy minds converge is 1998s Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, a awe-inspiring trip into autobiographical roots exploring an absolutely enormous amount of drugs in the grotesque haven of Las Vegas. Johnny Depp plays Raoul Duke, the Thompson character, with Benicio Del Toro playing his attorney sidekick Dr Gonzo, based on Oscar Zeta Acosta, Thomspon's attorney at the time. The two power into LV with a boot full of everything and anything you can imagine, scaring young hitchhiker Tobey Maguire with visions of bats and incidents with a handgun, before landing to cover a race of some kind for Sports Illustrated, which ended up being part of a much larger work for Rolling Stone. Whilst in the gambling mecca they also find themselves covering a District Attorney's conference - just what you need when you're popping that much shit. The descent into the madness of their drugfuelled hysteria and crazed delusions is mindboggling in its scope and depth. The sheer magnitude of the lunacy of the picture lends immense credence to the reality of the situation the two created for themselves. It goes so far past believable it crosses back into the realm of possibility simply because something that far gone can only come from a place of truth.


Gilliam has a very singular vision and style to his films. They basically look like the work of a lunatic, someone probably dropping as much acid as those crazy kids on their Las Vegas roadtrip. Visually exciting and arresting, he lets the performances from his leads drift into absolute anarchy, ramping up the histrionics to eleven and keeping them there for the entire show. Depp's mania is intense in a way rarely seen, and never kept up for such an extended period. His eyes, big to begin with, look set to take over his face - an effects shot that would have looked particularly at home in Fear And Loathing. Del Toro continues on his quest during the late 1990s to show that he is a force to be reckoned with in showbusiness, culminating in his Oscar a couple of years later for Traffic. Ellen Barkin, Christina Ricci and even Cameron Diaz pop up to show their support for these characters so immersed in the darkest recesses of their minds that they barely even register their own presence, let alone these smaller characters.


The continuous repetition of the drug-addled state Duke and Gonzo threatens to become too much to bear, to become monotonous and over-the-top, but manages to just keep itself together by sheer force of will and the cinematic presence of the charismatic leads. A great combination that makes for one of the scarier films you'll probably see in your time. 4 stars.

And Lastly for Right Now

This is a nice chunk of change, really. I wouldn't turn it down.

I Don't Need This Shit! I Am Reality!

Platoon is probably the best war movie I've seen yet. Oliver Stone's incredible break-out success as a director (he had previously won a screenplay Oscar for Midnight Express, but this was his big directing success - according to Box Office Mojo it took over US$130mil from a US$6mil budget...back in 1986) netted him a directing Oscar and the film a Best Picture statue, amongst six other nominations.

Stone, himself a Vietnam vet, wrote this powerful story centring on the beginnings of a year-long tour by Chris (Charlie Sheen), though the incredible standouts came from Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger as Sergeants Elias and Barnes respectively. Their relationship was heated, confrontational and deadly in many ways, exacerbated by the horrible nature of the Vietnam War and their equivalent rankings. Their completely different takes on right and wrong, and the influence they had on the men in their command, affects the viewer's morality in unnerving and uncomfortable ways. We'd all like to be the compassionate liberal portrayed by Dafoe, but a part of you understands the trauma and torment running through the veins of Berenger's Barnes. And they completely nailed their performances.

Sheen's Chris, however, left me wanting. I've never been a Charlie Sheen fan, in anything (though I've never seen Two And A Half Men, so maybe all the awards mean something), and I'm not a fan here. It might just be a personal dislike, but his actions and motivations fail to ring true throughout the film. His character develops, on paper, but I don't see him going through the journey - I see him saying the words, and pulling the faces, but I don't believe it.

Nothing, however, can take away from Stone's masterful and harrowing direction, not even Sheen's sub-par contribution. Some monumentally iconic and memorable shots, scenes and words pummel you from the screen. A few points had me audibly gasping. The score fell together perfectly (and while the repeated use of Barber's Adagio For Strings did start to grate through the film, it did become a warm blanket by the end), all of the other performances were fantastic (brief yet incredible turns from Johnny Depp, Kevin Dillon and Forest Whitaker being particular highlights), stunning scenery captured perfectly - it all blended to make a war movie that felt powerful and triumphant whilst simultaneously deriding the war and the politics at hand. I think that only a veteran of the war could truly undermine it in such a way whilst holding the soldiers who fought in it up as such heroes. The film is telling us that, like it or not, war happens. And in war, shit happens. And some of that shit is really, really bad. Some of the things people do are really, really bad. But, for the most part (though not all), respect must be given to those who fight them because when you're out there you just don't have a choice.

Platoon has a new relevance now, with much of the Western world embroiled in a couple of sagas that seem to be heading down the same route as Vietnam (when can we stop with the rhetoric and just admit that Afghanistan and Iraq are unmitigated disasters?) The film looks at the futility of going in against an enemy (who are, for all intents and purposes, unjudged in the film - they are treated as the enemy, but in much the same way as I imagine the Na'vi will be treated in Avatar. There is inherent racism, but it is also a one-sided look at the war) who know the lay of the land so much better, who are much more knowledgeable about the jungle and what it holds, and who are willing to risk everything to hold on to what they have. And doesn't that sound like something going on right now?

4.5 stars for Platoon. That the film overcomes the weakness of the lead to the extent that it only loses half a star is testament to the combined power of the other elements.