GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK
OF DR HUNTER S THOMPSON

Year: 2008
USA: Magnolia Pictures
UK: Optimum Releasing
Cast: Johnny Depp (narrator)
Archive footage of: Hunter S Thompson, Oscar Acosta, Sonny Barger, Jimmy Buffett, George W Bush, Jimmy Carter, Tim Crouse, Mayor Daley, Thomas Eagleton, Gary Hart, Hubert H Humphrey, Jefferson Airplane, Robert F Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Timothy Leary, George McGovern, Edmund Muskie, Richard Nixon, Ralph Steadman, Juan Thompson, George Wallace, Jann Wenner
Featuring: Pierre Adeli, Angela Berliner, Douglas Brinkley, Pat Buchanan, Pat Caddell, Joe Cairo, Eugenia Care, David Carlo, Brian Kimmet, Laila Nabulsi, Victor Ortiz, Melissa Otero, Gilleon Smith, Anita Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Sondi Wright, Alex Ziwak
Director: Alex Gibney
Country: USA
USA & UK: 120 mins
USA Rated: R for drug and sexual content, language and some nudity
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language, hard drug use, nudity and suicide theme
USA Release Date: 4 July 2008 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 19 December 2008 (Limited Release)


Synopsis

From Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney (ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE) and producer Graydon Carter comes a probing look into the uncanny life of national treasure and gonzo journalism inventor Dr Hunter S Thompson.

A fast moving, wildly entertaining documentary with an iconic soundtrack, the film addresses the major touchstones in Thompson's life - his intense and ill fated relationship with the Hell's Angels, his near-successful bid for the office of sheriff in Aspen in 1970, the notorious story behind the landmark Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his deep involvement in Senator George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, and much more.

While Gibney shaped the screen story, every narrated word in the film springs from the typewriters of Thompson himself. Those words are given life by Johnny Depp, the actor who once shadowed Thompson's every move for the screen version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and who bankrolled Thompson's spectacular funeral (photographed for this film) in which the good doctor's ashes were fired from a rocket launcher mounted with a towering two-thumbed fist whose palm held a giant peyote button.

A die-hard member of the NRA, he was also a coke-snorting, whiskey-swilling, acid-eating fiend. GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S THOMPSON is the definitive film biography of a mythic American figure.