No. 355 : Weird : The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

 

Weird : The Al Yankovic Story at the IMDb

This film was offered up to me by Amazon who are obviously aware of my dubious tastes. I am not immune to the acquired taste of Weird Al and I can honestly say that ‘Hardware Store’ is a rock solid classic.

I was a bit reticent about Daniel Radcliffe playing Al in this parody bio-pic though. I’ve never rated him as an actor and I’m sure all of his career stems from the fall out from his stint as Harry Potter. It must be easy to get a film green lit when you have such an established fan base behind your star. He also seems unlikeable as a person and regardless of your position on the debate I think his behaviour against JK Rowling, who effectively gave him his entire career, is indefensible.

 

Still, we all like a laugh so let’s have a look. The film lost points for me right away when it was clear that our old friends the non-linear narrative and the unreliable narrator were being employed. The film opens with Al being rushed to surgery but as so often happens the narration guides us back to the subject’s childhood. This sees a young Al being held back with his parents with his Dad assaulting a door to door accordion salesman. I appreciate that this was done for laughs but when the film is a biopic it annoys me when stuff gets totally made up. How can you trust anything that’s said going forwards?

 

The film doesn’t concern itself with accuracy however with Al’s affair with Madonna and his dealing with Pablo Escobar covered in detail. There were a few laughs as Al’s fledging career is helped by Rainn Wilson’s ‘Dr Dememto’. His parody and polka-based songs soon take off and there is a knowing nod to his niche popularity when a star-spangled pool party has all the celebs, such as Devine and Pee-Wee Herman fawning over Al.

 

The film was produced by ‘Funny or Die’ and they clearly used some of their influence to get a load of guest stars who showed up for a single scene such as Jack Black, Michael McKean and Conan O’Brien who managed a very poor impression of Andy Warhol. The pool party was the best scene and it went downhill from there. Basically, as soon as Evan Rachel Wood’s Madonna shows up you should bail out.

 

The film sees Al rise to greatness and then succumb to the temptations of stardom. He overcomes Michael Jackson parodying his song ‘Eat it’ with the inferior ‘Beat it’ and manages to reconcile with his father. Will All see a happy ending, or will it be one awards show too many?

 

This film was OK, but I thought Radcliffe was miscast. They clearly used Al for the songs and Potter’s buff body didn’t really suit the wimpy character he was playing. I could see the argument that the casting added to the self-serving bio-pic nature of the film but he just looked like a British guy in a wig.

 

The format and narrative of the film was a lot like ‘Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story’ and it was about as 20% as good as that stone cold classic. It also borrowed heavily from Howard Stern's 'Private Parts' and again it doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as that wonderful film.

 

Al himself shows up as a music executive who turns himself down for a contract and it almost seemed that the whole film was nothing but wish fulfilment on the part of the Polka Prince. I would have preferred more laughs and less self-reverential stuff barely disguised as satire. It was fun for the many cameos, but I came away learning little about the subject and having had too few laughs to justify my 100-minute investment.

 

Best Bit: The pool party.

‘W’ Rating: 13/23

No. 353 : World Trade Center (2006)

World Trade Center (2006) at the IMDb

 

 * I watched this film and wrote a review for my new Michael Shannon Blog 'Michael Shannon and On and On' which will debut sometime soon. Check back here later and I'll link it when it goes live. It would be a disservice to my one follower to not add a review here on the W movies blog, so I have adapted it for this audience with the more Shannon-centric comments removed.

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Five years after the devastating events of 9/11 director Oliver Stone assembled a star studded cast to try and tell some of the stories behind the disaster. It would be churlish to criticise it too much as it is well intentioned and celebrates worthy people, but you may find it a bit mawkish and sentimental.

The film centres on Nicholas Cage’s Port Authority cop John. After the attacks take place – mostly off camera; we see only a shadow of a hijacked plane – Cage is sent down to the site to assist in the rescue effort. He comes over as a bit cautious and fusses about looking for equipment as the towers burn and fall. I’m not sure what was being conveyed here – was he playing it safe and by the book or was he fearful of walking in to near certain death? His choices are quickly made for him however, when a tower collapses and he and his men dive into a lift entrance that quickly collapses. Most of the men are killed immediately, with another shooting himself in what I trust was a true incident, as it seemed a bit unconvincing in the film.

Cage and his colleague Michael Pena survive, but both are trapped by their legs. The remainder of the film documents their bid to survive as they comfort and cajole each other to stay awake and listen out for a rescue. As they do so we enter their minds and see flashbacks of better times. They also have visions of Jesus and imagined conversations with their wives. These scenes took me out of the moment somewhat and although they may be accurate to the men involved, it just seemed daft when a vision of Jesus came down to offer salvation. At least he brought a bottle of heavenly water with him.

Whilst our guys struggle with their predicament, the film intercuts with real life events, with stock footage from the day interwoven with scenes of the wives and family back home awaiting to hear of their men’s fate. The women in this film are poorly served with Pena’s partner, a pregnant Maggie Gyllenhaal, being annoying throughout and Cage’s Maria Bello having weird eyes. IMDb says her eyes were colourised for the film and it is poorly done and distracting.

We also get a couple of side stories with Michael Shannon's ex-marine accountant going back to the good fight and Frank Whaley's alcoholic character putting a plug in the jug so that he can offer medical assistance to the injured.

The trapped men are located and, after some digging and more bonding, both are eventually freed from their tomb. We then jump forward two years to see that they have done well in their rehabilitation with baby naming and marital difficulties seemingly resolved.

The films does well not to ponder on the political aspects of the events and focuses more on individual stories. This gives the production some heart, but it also makes it feel somewhat unsubstantial when it covers world changing events. The performances are mixed with a lot of shouting and screaming taking the place of real acting. Your sympathies lie with Cage and Pena from the start and the outcome was never really in doubt. The backstories and family dramas were decent but I didn’t like the wives much and some of the dialogue was too on the nose to be believable.

Overall I’d give the film a pass as it deals with tragic and emotional material well, but I never truly bought into the characters we were offered and their annoying families only served to distance me from the heart of the story. There was a lot to cover in a two hour film and I think ultimately it was a worthy but unsatisfying effort.

Best Bit : The building collapse was well realised and the sets were excellent.

'W' Rating 15/23

No. 322 : White Boy Rick (2018)

 

White Boy Rick at the IMDb

 Time for some true life crime biography next in the shape of this depressing and skuzzy drama that depicts the short crime life of Rick Wershe, who spent 30 odd years in jail prior to his recent release.

I had never heard of the case, but seemingly our hero was the youngest ever paid informant of the FBI at age 14 and the longest serving non-violent prisoner in the US penal system. These things considered, I had little sympathy for our protagonist and as such did not have too much affection for his bio-pic. That said, it was a decent offering but not one to love; more of a morality tale to remind you to stick in at school and not get involved in the selling of guns and narcotics. Duh.

We open with the young Richie and his Dad, Matthew McConaughey, buying firearms at a gun show. No, not me at the gym, an actual event for the sale of firearms. The 14 year old Richie spots a fake Kalashnikov which enables is Dad to get a good deal from the dealer. They make even more profit when Richie sells on the guns to the local drug lords with the addition of silencers, that Mahogany fashions in his basement.

Mahogany dreams of owing a video store - it is 1984 after all - and doesn’t mind dealing with drug pedlars, despite his own daughter being addicted to crack, if it helps to achieve his goal. Richie’s ‘in’ with the drug barons catches the attention of the FBI and soon agent Jennifer Jason Leigh has Richie on the payroll. They convince Ritchie to buy and later sell drugs so that they can infiltrate the gang. This doesn’t go well for Richie who gets a bullet in his guts for his trouble.

With no other means of support and a new baby to provide for, Richie starts to produce his own crack. Inevitably he gets caught and his FBI handlers are as much use as a cock flavoured lolly pop when Richie goes down for life. How did it end up here and can he cut a deal to earn his freedom? Is he a victim of society or a death dealer who got his just desserts?

This was a decent period offering with a great cast, but the subject matter and viewpoint weren’t to my liking and to be honest, to my mind, Richie got what he deserved. He was well played by the slow talking, but likeable Richie Merritt, but I had no sympathy for the character or his choices. It was rote large that his options were limited but he was clearly a poor drug dealer and his motivations didn’t excuse his actions.

Matthew McConaughey was good in his now familiar role of the lowlife scumbag - see ‘Killer Joe’ and his series of ‘True Detective’, but he couldn’t rescue the narrative here. He was a gun dealer who bought into his son’s drug ambitions. I liked the line when he said he’d maintained a good family and Richie pointed out he had a drug addict daughter and a screwed up son. You could say this was just a slice of life in the 1980s but why was Richie deserving of a bio-pic? He was made out to be on a path with no exits, but to accept that would be just accepting his criminal choices.

The period was well realised and there was an excellent supporting cast including a never rougher Jennifer Jason Leigh and a frankly miscast Eddie Marsan as some sort of drug lord.

The film ended with captions suggesting that Richie had been harshly treated but the film failed to elicit any sympathy from this viewer. There was no suggestion that Richie didn’t know what he was getting into, and although he inhabited a world with few options that didn’t excuse him dealing in deadly drugs.

When you have no sympathy for the lead in a bio-pic it’s hard for it to succeed but overall this was a well realised and enjoyable film, albeit one with a skewed moral compass.

Best Bit : Bruce Dern makes Pancakes ‘W’ Rating 17/23

No.300 : W. (2008)

W. at the IMDb

For our 300th’ post I thought we’d get back to basics with the most ‘W’ film you can get : ‘W.’.

This Oliver Stone bio-pic of the 43rd President of the United States was well observed and entertaining, but I doubt anyone watching it comes out knowing the protagonist any better.

The film employs a non-linear narrative with key moments in Bush’s life shown in flashback, with the year involved captioned to keep you right. We open in the White House as Bush and his cabinet of familiar faces discuss his ‘Axis of Evil’ speech. It’s 2002 and he’s plotting how to topple Saddam Hussein, and finish the job his father started in Gulf War One.

He railroads any objectors and finishes the meeting with a quick prayer. We are then transported back to 1966 with the young George applying to join a frat house. He does well in the company of the beery rabble rousers and we soon see him in jail following a football match fight whilst he’s at Yale. His dad, GB Senior, bails him out but he’s disappointed in him and it’s clear that his brother Jeb is the preferred offspring.

George stumbles through a variety of jobs, none of which he stays at for long. He has a drinking issue and is a disappointment to his Dad, James Cromwell, who is probably distracted with that troublesome pig. We jump back and forth with a present day Dick Cheney trying to get George to sign off on Guantanamo Bay torture with the bold George reminding him that ‘I’m the President’.

The path to the White House is however long with George losing his first bid for congress in 1977, but meeting his wife Laura (Elizabeth Banks) along the way. Fast forward to 1986 when George has a heart attack, gets sober and finds God. He also secures his Dad’s presidency when he runs a dirty tricks campaign for him against Dukakis. We then see George Jnr. as a baseball club owner before Desert Storm in 1991 and his Dad’s loss to Clinton in 1992.

He eventually becomes Texas Governor in 1994 and has a message from God that he should run for President in 1999. We know that he gets the big job but what will his legacy be and will he finally please his old man?

I’d seen this film near to its release but it was a lot better the second time around with the benefit of history and hindsight. Firstly the cast was great with Josh Brolin excelling as the flawed George. At the time Bush was a figure of fun but they did well to focus on the man rather than on the comedians’ take. Clearly you don’t get to lead the free world by being an idiot, but they did temper this by pushing the legacy aspect with his Dad offering no end of help.

Bush’s advisers were all familiar faces with Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney and Toby Jones as Karl Rove doing good work. Thandie Newton was less convincing as Condolezza Rice, with her performance looking more like a caricature.

Obviously a lot of what was said was behind closed doors and had to be speculated, but it seemed a balanced approach with only a couple of scenes inserted to make George look stupid, such as his hospital visit to injured troops where he handed out t-shirts to the maimed.

It was strange that the pivotal moment of his presidency, the 9/11 attacks, didn’t get more focus but it may have been too raw at the time of the 2008 production. Maybe they thought the fallout and legacy of Bush Senior was the story and to be fair it did make for an interesting narrative.

Overall I think this was a worthwhile and interesting bio-pic that did well to show the man rather than offer a commentary on his actions. Like the man the film had its flaws, but overall it was interesting and entertaining.

Best Bit : Oval Office Discussions  ‘W’ Rating 19/23

No.232 : When the Game Stands Tall (2014)

When the Game Stands Tall at the IMDb

 High school American football now, as the record breaking high school team De La Salle’s 151 game record gets the Hollywood treatment. Clearly winning 151 games in a row isn’t interesting enough as the film gets the dreaded ‘Inspired by a true story’ tag which effectively means loads of it might be made up - and according to Wikipedia it is.

Still, it isn’t billed as a documentary so let’s see if it stands up on its own two feet as a compelling sports drama.

Jesus Christ himself, Jim Caviezel stars as coach Bob Ladouceur who has lead the school to 12 straight school championships. As well as football coach he’s also scripture teacher and is married to Laura Dern, which is nice. The film opens with the Championship winning game and the pressure on the teams to maintain ‘The Streak’.  Predictable problems soon arise when star players are distracted by lucrative college offers and pushy parents tries to push their own kids into the team.

Bob has is own issues when he has a heart attack and is also tempted by offers to coach elsewhere. He also has a son on the team who isn’t that good and who takes the huff with his bedridden Dad when told that Pop may not be able to coach sports whilst he’s still warming a hospital bed.

The close season is a busy time as a player gets gunned down at a party and the new roster of players aren’t as keen on sharing their thoughts and holding hands, which helped the previous lot so well. Trouble is also brewing in the league as rival teams accuse Bob of tempting all the best players and basically cheating to keep his streak alive.

They may have a point as Bob retaliates by playing a higher ranked team and immediately loses the streak. After a second loss things threaten to go pear shaped especially as Kurgan out of ’Highlander’s son is closing in on a touchdown record that would make his old man happy and potentially enhance the boy’s future.

Things do improve and a mini streak sees the team to the championship game but can they win and will the lessons they have learned make them better people?

I was really disappointed in this film which had the potential to be good but ended up a cliché ridden mess. As soon as they left the path of truth and introduced extra dramatic elements all was lost for me. Facts were discarded and others made up which made all the achievements and sacrifices pointless.

The sub-plot of the Kurgan pressurising his son towards the touchdown record for his own aggrandisement was so well worn and hackneyed that you knew how it would play out. Every time the dad was on screen he was jabbering on about ‘the record’ and given the message that the team is more important you won’t need two guesses to see how that one plays out.

Caviezel is OK in the lead but he lacked the inspirational qualities the role demanded. His scenes with his wet son were a bit cringey and he had no spark at all with the lovely Laura Dern, who was criminally underused.

There were long periods with no on field action at all, with large swathes of the film taken up with the familiar territory of young black athletes being tempted by cars and the like and a chance to escape their tough existence.

There was nothing new in this film and given it deviated so far from the source material it failed as a biography or as a true story either. A pointless exercise all round.

Best Bit : Need a time out for that one.

‘W’ Score 6/23

No.199 : Who is Clark Rockefeller? (2010)

Who is Clark Rockefeller? at the IMDb

Good old true life TV movies - they’ve always got questions in the titles and those interrogative pronouns are solid gold for all we ‘W’ movie bloggers.

The film tells the tale of the longest scam in FBI history - a kind of ‘Catch me if you can’t’. We open as a distraught mother tries to get right her televised plea for her daughter. It’s not clear what is happening but we’re sure we’ll get back to that later. We cut to the seemingly wealthy Clark Rockefeller on the way to his club. He remembers everyone’s name and his easy charm has the ladies swooning. He seems like a solid dude and we know he’s not a fly by night as his name is painted on a board of former presidents of the club.

All is not as it seems however when he tells his driver an elaborate tale about someone stalking him and the chauffeur pitches in when the baddie seemingly tries to grab Clark’s daughter during their custody visit. We soon learn that the ‘stalker’ is in fact a chaperone and that Clark has kidnapped his own child. Clark’s ex-wife shows up and after a bit of flapping about over a dropped teddy gives the police a statement. This forms the main part of the film’s narrative flow as the 12 year marriage is scrutinised by a cop keen on gossip.

The lady detective, played by Jonas’ annoying wife out of ‘The Unit’ is a bit of a pain and all judgemental over the wife not spotting the subtle clues that Clark wasn’t all he said he was - the lack of cash for one. Luckily the ex-wife, Sandra, is loaded as she has a high flying job. This allows Clark to carry out his philanthropic acts which mainly consist of buying wine and talking bull shit. As Sandra’s tale gets nearer the present day and her televised plea for her daughter - remember that? - the police start to piece together Clark’s life.

Clark started out as a German exchange student but soon learned of peoples’ gullibility and set him self up as European royalty. After losing his accent he spins through several jobs and possibly a couple of murders. The film isn’t too explicit on this point as it was still pre-trial when it was made but Wikipedia tells us that he totally did it!

While the wife is sounding off and the police are doing those magical internet searches you only get in films we also see Clark enjoy a few days with his daughter. Will her new tomboy hair grow out and will the bumbling cops finally nail their man after 20 years?

I’ve seen a few of these TV movies lately and this is certainly the best of them. The production values were pretty good with Will out of ‘Will & Grace’ in the lead. I’ve never watched the show but he was a compelling and likable actor in a role where he could just have been a real shit. That was well judged as everyone else got suckered so why not the viewer too?

There weren’t any explosions or car chases but at least they went to the expense of recreating Clarks jobs as a surgeon and scientist and that flashback German mullet wig must have cost $20 at least! The film is a trim 86 minutes and it covers a lot of ground in that time. The story was well told and it certainly held my interest throughout.

Best Bit : I’m saving the economy of Liberia!  ’W’ Rating 15/23

No.171 : Wichita (1955)

Wichita on IMDb

Off to the wild west now, or rather the ‘mild’ west as there’s not a drop of blood or even any cussing in this strait-laced affair.

We open as some cattle drovers settle down for the night with some beans and possibly gay sex. Their plans, whatever they may be, are interrupted when they spot a stranger on the horizon. They give him a cautious welcome and it turns out he’s Wyatt Earp. Although the aging actor playing him, Joel McCrea, is already 50 no one knows who he is - better get a move on Gramps or they’ll need to install a stair lift by the time you get to the OK Corral!

They bed down for the night and soon two drovers approach Earp’s bed - maybe his red shirt and neckerchief was a signal? but no! They're after his cash. They get hold of his fat bank roll but Earp is wise to the game and after recovering his cash he punches the miscreants out. He heads off to Wichita with his dreams of opening a hardware shop intact. The drovers lick their wounds safe in the knowledge that they’ll be in Wichita soon themselves, and may get their chance at some revenge.

Earp hits town and wins favour with the mayor as his plans don’t involve opening another bar - Kavos this ain't. He goes to the bank and is able to thwart the tamest robbery attempt you’ll ever see, with robbers who look more like Sunday School teachers than brigands. The mayor immediately offers Earp the job of Marshall but our man is determined to sell his buckets, goddarn it!

Fate naturally takes control however when the pished up drovers enter the town and start grappling with some overdressed whores and shooting off their pistols. A hooker and then, seemingly more importantly, a young boy get shot by stray bullets and the even mild mannered Earp has had enough. He grabs the Marshall’s badge and a shotgun and kicks some ass. Well he politely asks them to stop, if it wouldn't be too much trouble.

Now mad with power Earp bans all guns from the town much to the chagrin of local worthy Doc Black who hires two guns to take out this meddlesome Marshall. But D’oh! He’s only hired Earp’s own brothers and gets run out of town for his bother. While all this non-killing is going on Earp finds the time to picnic with a local lass half his age. Tragedy looms however when the evil Doc returns and shoots Earp’s girl’s mother. Earp feigns anger and sets out in pursuit. Can he bring the villains to justice and ride off into the sunset with his gal?

This is definitely a film of its time with nothing remotely offensive or even slightly troubling going on. The biggest crime is the shooting of the boy, who frankly deserved it for his terrible ‘Oh I'm shot' acting. It was so bad it was only beaten by the leg shaking wackiness of Lloyd Bridges in his big shoot out scene. The whores showed nothing and the drunken drovers are so disinterested, even after six month’s abstinence, that they’d rather go about shooting their guns than getting to grips with the painted ladies.

The script is dire with every western cliché present and correct. The baddies literally wear black hats as if we’d mistake our clean cut hero for any of those less than menacing characters. The romance aspect looked tacked on with ‘do you want to go on a picnic’ seemingly shorthand for ‘let’s get it on’. Of course a small peck is followed by asking permission to be married - remember that kids!

The action scenes were dreadful with our man never missing a shot and the bad guys only chalking up one whore’s arm and a 5 year old in return for 10,000 rounds fired.

Of course the film was made for more innocent times, and no doubt some people gasped when the villain twirled his moustache, but nowadays it just looks like a funny throwback to a more naive and gentle period when the good guys won and the bad guys got their just desserts.

Best Bit : "The boy’s name was Michael Jackson - he was 5 years old" - Ow!

W Score 11/23

No.165 : Wild Bill (1995)

Wild Bill at the IMDb

You know, it’s lucky they make a wild west film every five minutes or we’d be in real danger of forgetting these guys, who in reality were a bunch of hard drinking’ hard shaggin’ murdering cow pokes. But it’s as near as America has to a history so let’s have a look at the 42nd re-invention of Wild Bill Hickok.

This film has a really excellent cast with recognisable names all down the credits. For me, that sounds a warning as the film is more likely to be stars raiding the dressing up box than anything even close to entertainment. I know that sounds like starting with a conclusion but that’s only because the film started it.

We open in black and white with Wild Bill’s funeral. We get a slightly reverential commentary from John Hurt as the Englishman abroad, a role later filled and bettered by Saul Rubinek in ‘Unforgiven’. Hurt then goes back into colour to paint a picture of the man and the legend.

We meet Jeff Bridges as Wild Bill enjoying a few captioned ‘greatest hits’ as he shoots up the old west while playing cards, drinking whisky and smoking opium. We then catch up with in his present day as he starts losing his sight and coming to the attention of various young guns keen to make their name by shooting the great man.

Bill settles in Deadwood and is soon pumping Calamity Jane and avoiding the attentions of his bastard son who has hooked up with Kelly Bundy, who looks quite fetching in her bustier. The narrative, as it is, is really more ‘scenes from a life’ rather than a decent story, and while that’s true of most bio-pics, this one has been so well mined before that there’s not a lot to surprise or thrill.

The Old West as shown here is a bit too clean, with the gun fighters, such as the wheel chair bound Bruce Dern, a bit to noble to be real. I’d imagine that the ‘Deadwood’ TV series with its bushwhackers and road agents to be a lot more realistic than these tales of people being called out for a duel. They also have the cleanest looking whores you’ll ever see.

I thought Jeff Bridges did his usual stand up job, but I wasn’t really convinced that he was a complicated nineteenth century gunslinger. It wasn’t helped by some ill-advised opening sequences where he kill a slew of men for touching his hat, which made the film seem like a comedy from the start.

The production values are pretty high with a recognisable cast of some standing and the usual old west sets and stick on moustaches. I just felt the whole film had a ‘TV Movie’ aesthetic with the wobbly camera and flashbacks to black and white serving only to highlight the limited scope of the whole affair.

With a life so well documented getting the bio-pic focus you really have to bring something new to the party and when all you come up with the ‘greatest hits’ it’s no surprise that this western is largely forgotten. It’s not particularly bad but nothing special and with an unsympathetic character at the forefront you’ll quickly wonder why you bothered.

Best Bit : Bill shares his bath water
‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.75 : Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)

 Where the Buffalo Roam at the IMDb

Bill Murray stars as gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson in this bio-pic that focuses on three episodes from his times as a journalist for Life magazine.

The film has a predictable book ending device that sees Murray at his desk with a deadline looming. Short of inspiration he thinks back to his past and the three episodes follow. We fist meet him in San Francisco in the 1960’s where he recalls the exploits of Lazlo, his lawyer, who turns up in each subsequent part. Bill sits in the courtroom as his friend defends some hippy pot smokers, unsuccessfully.

We then move to the 1972 Superbowl where Bill has a hotel suite and is fully abusing the expenses tab. He doesn’t go to the game and trades his tickets for a hat before joining Lazlo at his militia training camp.

The last part sees Bill on the campaign trail with nominee Richard Nixon. He is refused an interview but manages to get some prize quotes when he gets Odo off ‘Deep Space Nine’ high and nicks his credentials.

As the last story fades we rejoin Bill in the present with his dog and his assignment complete.

I didn’t really like this film much mainly because I didn’t like Bill Murray’s character at all. He was constantly being wacky and obstinate but came across as a total prick. You never got the impression that he was anything other than Bill Murray doing an impression, and that distraction undermined the whole film.

For a gonzo writer like Thompson the lazy framing method for the stories must have been an embarrassment and I doubt he liked being portrayed as a laconic douche bag either. Peter Boyle as Lazlo was a bit better and at least the mania from him didn’t seem forced. The other main player was an underused Bruno Kirby as Thompson’s editor who spent the whole film getting angry at missed deadlines.

The three episode format for the film did make it more digestible, but I don’t think anything was learned or developed from section to section. Lazlo was the only real connection and his part was more comic relief than essential to the stories. Of the three sections the last was best and the actor who played Richard Nixon did a pretty good job - better than Anthony Hopkins at least! This was the most fun too and saw Bill relegated form the journalist plane to the zoo plane where all the hangers on got high. And flew on it too. Boom Boom.

The opening episode was the worst with an interminable 30 minutes spent on some students getting tried for pot possession. I know it was to show how bad ‘the man’ was but it seemed a real waste of time as we joined Bill sitting casually by, watching events unfold. The middle part was ranked as such and had a few funny bits; but this was were Bill was at his most wasteful and annoying and some poor maid will have to clean that up.

I hadn’t heard of this film before, and it was a lot more accessible than the other Hunter bio-pic ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, but it’s poor lead performance let it down along with the dull predictable script.

Best Bit Tricky Dickie in the toilet
‘W’ Score 11/23