hunter s thompson fear and loathing movie

She recently wrote an essay about the book where she explains the many reasons she does not like it. While the book has many fans, Las Vegas-based writer Veronica Klash is not among them. 'That gonzo feel of the place is almost a naturally occurring experience,' he said, 'It is a bit surreal on the Strip any given night.' Smith believes if the city's promoters could find a current writer like Thompson to bring here and let him or her do a send-up of the city, people would read it. 'Some of them are still appalled by it, why? I don't really know,' Smith said, 'This is clearly a guy trying out some new journalism chops and mixing in a lot of drug use and a lot of fantasy in that book as well.' He said, to this day, some older Las Vegans still bristle at the way the city was portrayed. 'The official reaction to the book was just outrage that Las Vegas was withered and staggered by the criticism,' he said, 'In reality, he probably did Las Vegas a favor, marketing it as a place that was interesting enough to do drugs in.' Smith said there was a lot of controversy when the book came out. 'We were kind of in that vortex of change and I think Thompson was the kind of an agent of change in his own right,' he said. Smith said, at the time, Las Vegas was trying to re-invent itself after a lot of the music culture of the time had moved past the city. 'It was also an era of Nixonian politics in Washington and there was a drug culture here in Las Vegas,' Smith said, 'We were then, as now, a real crossroads for humanity.' Along with that, downtown had bustling gaming on Fremont Street.īut the book isn't a travel log of Las Vegas 1971, it is really a look at American at large. Some of the icons of the Strip were already established including Circus Circus and Caesars Palace, Smith said. 'This is the new Las Vegas of that age,' Smith said, 'We re-invent ourselves so much that you have to remember that it wasn't always mega-resorts.'

He said when Thompson and his attorney drove their convertible into the city, they arrived to a new Las Vegas.

Smith, a longtime Las Vegas journalist and a regular contributor to State of Nevada, was 12 and living in Las Vegas when the book was released. And don’t forget the scores of men who dress as main character Raoul Duke every Halloween.īut how has it aged? Even as it remains at the top of the Vegas literary canon, there are lingering issues about its portrayal of Vegas, its dated version of journalism and how its characters are portrayed.

Johnny Depp famously starred in the movie version in 1998. Journalists tried to copy Thompson’s gonzo journalism style for much of the ‘70s. Thompson wrote 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' the most famous book ever set in Vegas.

Hunter s thompson fear and loathing movie