Where the Buffalo Roam

While it in no way deserves such treatment I am going to go right ahead and compare this to Fear and Loathing. It has some of the same dialogue and a sprinkling of similar scenes and the primary characters are emulations of the same two people, it was simply impossible not to pit the one against the other. And with Gilliams film being 300 pounds of drug fueled mayhem it's likely Bill Murray will lose some teeth.

If it has one thing over one of the finest films in all creation it's that it more effectively embraced the spirit of "Gonzo". The frenetic stream of consciousness that Hunter S. Thompson sought in his work. Unfortunately it's only really a positive in theory as it amounts to a film that's a structureless mess. A jumbled creaking series of beats with no coherent melody.

The problem with translating his work to the screen is that it's really the beauty of the prose that is the point, the standout scenes in both films are the narration directly from his writing, but while Fear and Loathing built upon this, paralleling it's themes with the action, Where the Buffalo Roam just sort of flounders around it.

Some of the individual scenes are entertaining, and Murray's performance alone is probably worth enduring the remainder. It's a lot closer to how I think of Thompson than Depp's performance, who really exaggerated the extremes. Not that that's in any way a bad thing, indeed it was what that film needed to suit the surrealism, and his vocal inflection was simply sublime, it's just worth mentioning how eerily similar Bill gets to the Hunter I've seen in various documentaries. Peter Boyle as his attorney is another matter, a wonderful actor generally, he's a rounded, gentle man and in no way captures the presence and menace that Del Toro nailed to the wall.

I think it's worth watching for fans of all things Gonzo and for people keen on Fear and Loathing, as it makes strange comparison, but it's little more than a curiosity because as a film it's kind of calamitous.