Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson
on Film
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Program: C-
Produced
by the cable movie network Starz, “Buy
the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film” is a cheap cash-in
on the Hunter nostalgia that gripped the nation in the years after Thompson’s
suicide. The documentary is 77 minutes
and features interviews with Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, John
Cusack, Tom Wolfe, and family and childhood friends. In other words, this is a documentary about
the life of Hunter S. Thompson rather than an exploration of the good Dr. Gonzo
on film.
For
Thompson newcomers or for those who have a peripheral knowledge of his work,
this documentary efficiently covers the life, times, and death of the literary
legend. But for people expecting a
probing look at how Thompson’s work has been translated by Hollywood, look
elsewhere. There have only been two
movies made from Thompson’s work: Where
the Buffalo Roam from 1980 with Murray in the Thompson role and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from
1998 with Depp portraying Thompson.
Director Tom Thurman has a difficult job here justifying a documentary
on a very narrow topic that ultimately doesn’t have a thesis. In the end, he fails in this regard. The anecdotes he gets out of his interview
subjects are interesting, but they never amount to any great statement of
Hunter S. Thompson beyond he’s a literary and cultural nut and genius. Been there, done that.
Still,
there is a brief glimmer of hope here; unfortunately it’s all-too-quickly
snuffed out. Thurman spends the end of
the documentary discussing Thompson’s wake, where his ashes were shot out of a
giant representation of his Gonzo Fist, a two-thumbed fist shoved defiantly in
the air protesting anything and everything.
But we never get much footage of the event, nor do we hear what it was
like to be there (by all accounts, published in magazines like Rolling Stone, it was a grand, crazy
send off wholly befitting Thompson’s legacy).
The closest we get is an on-the-edge Harry Dean Stanton who reads a
letter he wrote to Thompson that, Stanton says, he never got to read at the
wake because they somehow forget he wanted to read it. With tears in his eyes, Stanton reads his
letter then sings “Danny Boy” in a
way only Stanton can. It’s a crushing
moment, and it makes you long for a documentary about Thompson’s wake and what
it said about him. As it is, we get a
retread piece about Thompson that works for casual observers but few others
that can only be recommended to people with little-to-no exposure to Hunter S.
Thompson’s writing or persona.
The
1.78:1 widescreen presentation is acceptable for a documentary shot digitally,
and the sound quality is equally passable.
There are no extras, though, save two commercials run on Starz for the
documentary. Overall, “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S.
Thompson on Film” is best left for viewing in its original medium:
television.
- Dante A. Ciampaglia
