Review of Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) by Howard F — 22 Aug 2007

Only a substance-free square would deny that Gilliam's film of Hunter S Thompson's near-perfect comic novel Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas reveals itself on repeated viewings to be near-perfect itself.

The big surprise about this currently rather rare Thompson movie from almost two decades earlier is not that its nowhere near as good (we all expected that) but that its not at all bad. A surprising amount of the later fim's visual motifs are here, though in a less psychedelically opulent way.

Thompson hated Murray's performance (though he might have been joking, of course) but it may be more accurate than Depp's loveable oddball - Murray seems far more in posession of himself, his speech is more ridiculous and unintelligible and he is - crucially - lankier.

Boyle as the Samoan attorney (inexplicably listed above Murray in the cast list) is, by contast, less convincing than Del Toro, being quite plainly not of Latin extraction. The narrative is cut and pasted rather randomly from three or four random vignettes taken from the golden age of Thompson's journalism before he became a total recluse - but is none the less entertaining for that randomness.