The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
Back to trending 
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Adventure · Drama · Comedy · 1998
Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr. Gonzo drive a red convertible across the Mojave desert to Las Vegas with a suitcase full of drugs to cover a motorcycle race. As their consumption of drugs increases at an alarming rate, the stoned duo trash their hotel room and fear legal repercussions. Duke begins to drive back to L.A., but after an odd run-in with a cop, he returns to Sin City and continues his wild drug binge.
Movie details
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
1998 Adventure · Drama · Comedy 1h 58m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
7.2 / 10
Community rating
Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr. Gonzo drive a red convertible across the Mojave desert to Las Vegas with a suitcase full of drugs to cover a motorcycle race. As their consumption of drugs increases at an alarming rate, the stoned duo trash their hotel room and fear legal repercussions. Duke begins to drive back to L.A., but after an odd run-in with a cop, he returns to Sin City and continues his wild drug binge.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
The Big Kahuna
Comedy · 1999
Three salesmen working for a firm that makes industrial lubricants are waiting in the company's "hospitality suite" at a manufacturers' convention for a "big kahuna" named Dick Fuller to show up, in hopes they can persuade him to place an order that could salvage the company's flagging sales.
The Dirt
Drama · 2019
The story of Mötley Crüe and their rise from the Sunset Strip club scene of the early 1980s to superstardom.
Al Capone
Action · 1959
In this unusually accurate biography, small-time hood Al Capone comes to Chicago at the dawn of Prohibition to be the bodyguard of racketeer Johnny Torrio. Capone's rise in Chicago gangdom is followed through murder, extortion, and political fraud. He becomes head of Chicago's biggest "business," but moves inexorably toward his downfall and ignominious end.
Heavy Traffic
Animation · 1973
A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.
Thursday
Thriller · 1998
A former Los Angeles drug dealer moves far away to Texas, making a new life for himself as a married architect in the suburbs. His old crime partner unexpectedly shows up with heroin and gangster business, attracting a slew of violent unsavory characters.
Choke
Comedy · 2008
A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.
Shampoo
Comedy · 1975
On Election Day, 1968, irresponsible hairdresser and ladies' man George Roundy is too busy cutting hair and dealing with his girlfriends and mistress Felicia Karpf, whose husband Lester is having an affair with his ex-girlfriend Jackie.
O Lucky Man!
Comedy · 1973
An ambitious coffee salesman has a series of improbable and ironic adventures seemingly designed to challenge his naive idealism.
Fritz the Cat
Animation · 1972
In late 1960s New York City, fed up with monotonous college life and police repression, free-spirited Fritz, an impenitent seducer and unrestrained party-animal, decides to explore the world. And just like that, as he flees NYC, heading to San Francisco, Fritz embarks on an endless adventure of illumination. Immersed in a world surrounded by drugs and sex, Fritz participates in mad orgies, brings about a revolution, incites mass urban riots, and crosses paths with drug-addled Nazi bikers.
Filth
Crime · 2013
A bigoted junkie cop suffering from borderline personality disorder and drug addiction manipulates and hallucinates his way in a bid to secure promotion.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Terry Gilliam
Written by
Terry Gilliam · Tony Grisoni · Tod Davies · Alex Cox
Johnny Depp
Raoul Duke
Benicio del Toro
Dr. Gonzo
Tobey Maguire
Hitchhiker
Michael Lee Gogin
Uniformed Dwarf
Larry Cedar
Car Rental Agent - Los Angeles
B
Brian Le Baron
Parking Attendant
Katherine Helmond
Desk Clerk at Mint Hotel
Court is in session
Put Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.