Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

tieman64 "The Sixties were an era of extreme reality. I miss the smell of tear gas." - Hunter S. Thompson Hunter S. Thompson came to prominence in the 1960s, when he wrote about his experiences as an embedded journalist within the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang. He then reported on various national election campaigns and began to popularise a form of "Gonzo" journalism. Part journalism, part memoir and always written in the first person, Thompson's style of Gonzo typically mixed observations, emotions and facts with wild exaggerations and bizarre humour. "Some people will say," Thompson said, "that words like 'scum' and 'rotten' are wrong for Objective Journalism, which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place." In blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction, Thompson thus sought to convey a deeper truth. To shake up the status quo. Objective journalism, he believed, controlled by mega-corps, interest groups and which hid a firm political stance behind a guise of apoliticism and neutrality, "is one of the main reasons," he said, "that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long."Unsurprisingly, Thompson was influenced by the anti-establishment prose of Beat writers; he was hostile to the powers that be and viewed them all as the populace's enemy. In 1968 he'd witness the infamous police brutality beatings outside Chicago's Democratic Convention. Disillusioned, he'd start seeing even the Democrats as an arm of imperialism and violent repression, both at home and abroad. "The Democratic Party has never recovered from that convention," he wrote. "It is a wound that still festers." In 1970 Thompson would run for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado. Here he passionately campaigned for the legalisation of drugs, though all the while his pen continued to spit scorn at public figures, presidents and politicians. "How low do you have to stoop in this country to be president?" he wrote of Nixon, a man he'd routinely describe as a murderer, pig and idiot.Slowly, however, Thompson would grow disillusioned. Spotting the right-wing trajectory of all US parties, he became more and more convinced of his own irrelevance. He turned to drugs and alcohol, became increasingly demoralised and attempted to hide from an American political reality he found increasingly ugly. "He was impassioned to make the system work, and make the system good," his first wife would say, but it's precisely the mistaken and futile belief that the "system" could "work" and be made "good" that contributed to Thompson's demise. He'd commit suicide in 2005, shooting himself one month after George W. Bush's second inauguration. His suicide note read: "No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 more years than I needed or wanted. Relax. This won't hurt." Released in 1980, "Where the Buffalo Roam" is a semi-biographical comedy. Drawing from several of Thompson's works ("Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail", "The Great Shark Hunt", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" etc), the film stars Bill Murray as Thompson. Murray perfectly mimics Thompson's distinct mannerisms and style of speech, and the film is fittingly wild, anarchic, undisciplined and irreverent, but director Art Linson is too much of a novice to make things work. The film plays like a bad Altman movie.Still, "Buffalo" captures a certain spirit. It's a David vs Goliath battle, albeit one in which David, like the buffalo, seems doomed to extinction. Perhaps the film's best sequence takes place in a courtroom, where we see early signs of later Anti-Drug Abuse Acts. Some of the more overtly racist pieces of legislation, such acts routinely lead to the handing out of 5 year sentences to those in possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine. In order to spend the same 5 years for possession of powder cocaine, though, you'd need to be caught with 500 grams. Why this 100:1 discrepancy? Because expensive powdered cocaine is the drug of choice for upper-middle class suburban whites and white-collar bankers. Crack, meanwhile, is all black baby. In other words, the scales are calibrated to persecute based on race and socio-economic status. There are two sets of rules, one for those with power and social capital, and one for the rest. We see this even today, with cases spiralling around figures like Bradley Manning or even Aaron Swartz, the guy who committed suicide when faced with 35 years in prison for downloading academic articles, a crime apparently worse than any law breaking Wall Street CEO, Blackwater executive or corrupt politician. Dissent is tolerated up to a point, but once you trespasses upon the sacred turf of corporate profits and military power, then action must be taken.Better than "Buffalo" but less interesting and more conventional is "The Rum Diary", which stars Johnny Depp as Thompson. Set in Puerto Rico, its another David vs Goliath story, Thompson and his band of oddball outsiders waging wars against criminal-capitalist cartels, indifferent civilians, standing up for the little guy, and attempting to turn a sell-out newspaper into a weapon of righteousness. Significantly, Thompson and his fellow prose warriors are either drunk, stoned or outright insane. They live physically in one period of time and mentally in another, ahead of their time and therefore incompatible with it. Directed by Bruce Robinson, the film's beautifully noirish, sexy and structured as an old, classic noir mystery, though such a cosy and familiar tone is perhaps unbefitting of Thompson.Strangely, both "Buffalo" and "Diary" end on a note of optimism. They pine for days before today's moribund liberalism. Terry Gilliam's "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas", in contrast, is explicitly about defeat, his Thompson reduced to just another hedonistic consumer.7/10 - Worth one viewing.

Quag7 Both of the HST films have problems. This film's problem is that it is too "screenwritten" (Lazlo replacing The Brown Buffalo, "Blast" Magazine replacing Rolling Stone, etc.) and lacks the weird surrealism that a drug-fueled observation of American culture at the end of the 1960s deserves, if not requires.It does play a bit like Caddyshack, as someone else pointed out, and it's hard to get really invested in the characters. And if you love HST as much as I do, you really do want to get into the characters and in to the story, because it's as important as it is funny. Where the Buffalo Roam is, for the most part, silly. It comes off as more a bunch of sketches than anything else. I did like Bill Murray in the part. The problem is the script, more than anything else.Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by contrast, does well with the surrealism and depravity but fails to make the full point I think Thompson was trying to get across - the decadence and over-the-top performances (especially of del Toro) are distracting, and really all of this is supposed to be about the death of the American dream, and the end of what was (to some) the best decade on record, or at least the one where people thought, for a time, they could make something of American life. Both movies hint at this but don't go into it enough, in my opinion.Where the Buffalo Roam captures a little of the sadness and the creeping hopelessness of the early 70s (along with an indication of the hangover awaiting that generation in the 70s), but both movies fall far short of Thompson's books and writing in my opinion.I was particularly saddened that both movies left out the "We're looking for the American dream" bit at the taco stand, because I think that was important, and the F&L Vegas story seems decontextualized without it (in terms of having a fairly serious (and sad) point under all of the humor and excess).In any case, both movies are worth a watch but ultimately unsatisfying. Thompson is still best read. I think a good film about HST can be made, but the right person needs to be at the helm.Richard Linklater or John Sayles, perhaps...someone who isn't going to miss the deeper substance underlying and buttressing the humor. That being said, there are far worse movies you could be watching than either.And like Thompson, it still hasn't gotten weird enough for me.

southern_jew I just happened upon this movie while perusing my "Bill Murray" Favorite Actors Wishlist on my Tivo. I had never heard of it before, but since I enjoy reading Hunter S. Thompson's work and having seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I instructed my faithful DVR to record the movie at 4:30 one Sunday morning. WHAT A GREAT MOVIE!!! I cannot express this sentiment enough. From the dead on impersonation of Dr. Thompson's mannerisms by Bill Murray to the militant antics of 60's radical lawyer Peter Boyle (Lazlo) throughout the movie, these two more than faithfully portrayed the crazy antics well documented in Gonzo journalism. Please, do yourself a favor, if you consider yourself a fan of this genre, or if you just want to see a timeless piece of funny, witty, action filled cinema, find a way to see this woefully under-advertised classic.

MisterWhiplash I've read, or at least heard, that Hunter S. Thompson didn't like this film when it came out. I can sense the reasons why after watching it the other night. While it takes some specific events and the times of his career in the later 60's and early 70's, there's nothing really holding it together, and the scenes showcasing his madness (of course not without its truths) are so over the top at times it's questionable what is closer to the facts or closer to a Cheech and Chong comedy. On the other hand, the fact that it is a Cheech and Chong style comedy of sorts, with our two heroes wreaking havoc wherever they go in their perpetual search for the truth or the American dream or good drugs leading to some hilarious results.We're taken through Thompson's knack for keeping his editor (here played in some good stature and tenseness by Bruno Kirby) on edge by delaying the "best story I've ever written" as Hunter says, his witnessing of terrible outcomes with his attorney Carl Laszlo on trial, his meetings with Laszlo in the 'underground', and his time spent on the campaign trail in 1972. The only problem is producer/director Art Linson (who is indeed more of a producer than a director, see his credits) and screenwriter John Kaye don't have the kind of structure that made Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas such a rush; there isn't much method to the madness (at times), which is true to the Gonzo form, but for the most part it is really just random acts of destruction and chaos from the Doctor and his attorney. This would be all fine if there was more truth to the characters.I think it's right how other reviewers have said that if you've seen the Terry Gilliam film with Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro before this film you might have similar expectations or want something that wild on the plate here. But if you've also read Dr. Thompson's writings (I haven't read the ones listed as the inspirations in the credits, but I have read Fear & Loathing in America, right from this time period), you'll see a different man than is portrayed here, who is made more of just a simple caricature than as a full being. 'Las Vegas' had him as a caricature too, but at least there the atmosphere was set-up to compliment the characters and 'real life' scenarios. Here, Bill Murray takes the Thompson persona, but his performance really works because he is, well, Bill Murray. And Murray can only take the two-dimensional, Hollywood form of Thompson only so far.On the end of the performances alone, the film scores some points against the flaws in the script; Murray's turn here is like a 180 from his turns in the recent Lost in Translation or Broken Flowers. Here he has unexplainable bouts of screeches, shoots random shots from his guns at objects, and if he's let out into a hotel room, watch out. The thing that's curious though is how the film isn't quite as funny when Peter Boyle, as the Oscar Acosta inspired Laszlo, comes onto the screen. Boyle's had some great performances (Young Frankenstein, Monster's Ball), but this isn't one of them. He's even more two-dimensional than Thomspon is portrayed; he starts out defending the little guy, but then turns completely to anarchy. One or two scenes are amusing, when he enters unexpectedly in a Nixon mask, but they're few and far between. If for no other reason to see the film, therefore, is for Murray, who brings a random absurdity of his own that somehow helps to bring a little more depth than the script allows.So, if I were to recommend which Thompson film to see first, I would go to Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. However, if you're more of a Murray fan than Depp's, and might feel tipsy by Gilliam's style, then you might like the slightly safer insanity of Linson's film. Not a bad film, but it could've been better.