Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson

Director: Alex Gibney
Produced by: Graydon Carter
Released: December 19

A documentary about Hunter S Thompson is bound to be a blast. Thompson pioneered the anarchic, psychedelic genre of "gonzo journalism"—notably in his 1972 masterpiece, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—but his not-very-private private life was almost as legendary as his writing.

He spent his days holed up in a cabin in the Colorado mountains, where his drug and alcohol intake was superhuman, and where he used his vast gun collection to take pot shots at passing animals (he was Hunter by nature, as well as by name). The only problem for a documentary-maker is that his unhinged, self-destructive behaviour is so well known already.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson is directed by Alex Gibney, who won an Oscar for his documentary about the American military's use of torture, Taxi to the Dark Side. In that film, he explored a complex, weighty story. But is there anything left of Thompson to uncover? Gonzo may be chock-full of scurrilous anecdotes, prestigious interviewees (including former US president Jimmy Carter) and priceless source material, including Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing adaptation in 1998. But when Thompson himself was so candid about his flaws and eccentricities, what else can Gibney tell us?

There is one thing, it seems. The big secret to emerge from Gibney's in-depth profile is that the drug-crazed hermit of lore could sometimes be quiet and thoughtful. More than just a troublemaker and a hellraiser, the Thompson we see in archive interviews, and in his own home movies and tape recordings, was a soft-spoken patriot and a penetrating political commentator who wasn't motivated by knee-jerk cynicism or a desire to shock, but by his deep disappointment that the idealism of the 1960s had been betrayed. Sadly, it wasn't his heartfelt current affairs analysis that caught readers' attention, but his rock 'n' roll persona.

After Fear and Loathing made him a cult hero, he was almost as intoxicated by fame as he was by all the narcotics he used. He was happy to live up to his image as America's wild man of letters, even if it meant turning himself into a caricature, literally, when a character based on him featured in the Doonesbury newspaper strip. His output dwindled from the 1970s until his suicide in 2005.

Gibney's documentary leaves you in no doubt that Thompson could be a Mr Hyde—"vicious", "scary", "moody" and "cruel", according to his two ex-wives—but it also reveals that he could be Dr Jekyll, too. It's a side of him that Thompson's fans tend to forget. His tragedy was that he let himself forget it, too.

Nicholas Barber