Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

TheDoomSong I have been a fan of Thompson as a writer and person for at least ten years now and read most of his books and articles as well as a couple of books about him. Thompson's life- and writing style is, if anything, unique and a movie about him that features a structured and clear plot would go completely against what defined Thompson. Having said that I will admit that "Buffalo" seems fractured and does not have a definite beginning and ending, but Murray captures a lot of Thompson's mannerisms and the episodes the movie is composed around are all interesting and fun to watch. All in all I would say that the movie is a success as it keeps the audience entertained and adapts Thompson's writing style adequately. If you are interested in Thompson and like Bill Murray as an actor, "Buffalo" will be right up your alley and a comparison with Gilliam's "Fear and Loathing" is interesting, especially when you've already watched the real Thompson in one of the documentaries.

vdot76 It was fun to see Bill Murray as HST, having only seen Johnny Depp as HST in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (I watched this movie for the first time recently, Aug 2008). I think he did pretty well, probably better than I expected.The relationship with Lazlo is very much the center of the movie, which I thought was funny/strange/interesting/disturbing, much like the relationship with Acosta in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, only more fun to watch, because Peter Boyle was a genius! How the two played off each other was excellent, and reminded me of HST's relationship with Ralph Steadman in his book "The Curse of Lono", and also Ralph Steadman's book "The Joke's Over: Bruised Memories: Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson, and Me".Entertaining movie that could have shown more about how HST worked and how GONZO came about. I would recommend it to HST fans only, because they'd know more what to expect (drugs, insanity, "bad craziness", etc.). Other people with other expectations will hate it, especially if they've never read HST, or HAVE read HST and weren't impressed.

memery-1 HST purists may scoff, but this movie still holds its own. Not as dark as "Fear and Loathing..." but way more fun, this is a great party movie. In a way, its aimlessness reflects the early 70s era and Murray's performance is pretty hilarious. Not sure if there was any of his patented improvising, but he's pretty off the wall (washing his sneakers in a public bathroom and disrobing while talking to Nixon?). There's no real plot, just random adventure of HST with reocurring visits from Peter Boyle as the radically liberal Lazlo. I remember that "Fear and Loathing..." generated a ton of hype, but this film better captures the drunken spirit of HST and his tales.

Quag7 Both of the HST films have problems. This film's problem is that it is too "screenwritten" (Lazlo replacing The Brown Buffalo, "Blast" Magazine replacing Rolling Stone, etc.) and lacks the weird surrealism that a drug-fueled observation of American culture at the end of the 1960s deserves, if not requires.It does play a bit like Caddyshack, as someone else pointed out, and it's hard to get really invested in the characters. And if you love HST as much as I do, you really do want to get into the characters and in to the story, because it's as important as it is funny. Where the Buffalo Roam is, for the most part, silly. It comes off as more a bunch of sketches than anything else. I did like Bill Murray in the part. The problem is the script, more than anything else.Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by contrast, does well with the surrealism and depravity but fails to make the full point I think Thompson was trying to get across - the decadence and over-the-top performances (especially of del Toro) are distracting, and really all of this is supposed to be about the death of the American dream, and the end of what was (to some) the best decade on record, or at least the one where people thought, for a time, they could make something of American life. Both movies hint at this but don't go into it enough, in my opinion.Where the Buffalo Roam captures a little of the sadness and the creeping hopelessness of the early 70s (along with an indication of the hangover awaiting that generation in the 70s), but both movies fall far short of Thompson's books and writing in my opinion.I was particularly saddened that both movies left out the "We're looking for the American dream" bit at the taco stand, because I think that was important, and the F&L Vegas story seems decontextualized without it (in terms of having a fairly serious (and sad) point under all of the humor and excess).In any case, both movies are worth a watch but ultimately unsatisfying. Thompson is still best read. I think a good film about HST can be made, but the right person needs to be at the helm.Richard Linklater or John Sayles, perhaps...someone who isn't going to miss the deeper substance underlying and buttressing the humor. That being said, there are far worse movies you could be watching than either.And like Thompson, it still hasn't gotten weird enough for me.