It\u2019s hard to feel too bad for Thompson\u2014who died in 2005 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound\u2014in this regard, not merely because he openly revelled in the spoils of his infamy, but also because he\u2019s very much responsible for this outcome. As he himself wrote in his book of collected essays, The Great Shark Hunt<\/em> (1979), \u201cTrue Gonzo reporting needs the talents of a master journalist, the eye of an artist\/photographer and the heavy balls of an actor\u2026 probably the closest analogy to the ideal would be a film director\/producer who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least main character.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Thompson never transitioned into the full-blown cinema auteur he describes, he did see to it that his legend made it to silver screen numerous times over the course of the last four decades, starting with the semi-autobiographical comedy Where the Buffalo Roam<\/em>, released 40 years ago this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The directorial debut of Hollywood producer and memoirist Art Linson, Where the Buffalo Roam<\/em> stars Bill Murray\u2014then still a Saturday Night Live<\/em> cast member\u2014as the hard-living reporter. The narrative, if it can be called that, consists of a series of loosely-connected vignettes inspired by various Thompson sources. Over the course of 99 minutes, we stick with Thompson as he bulldozers his way through hospitals, hotels, courtroom and press pools, gets mixed up with Latin American revolutionaries and drug runners, and interrupts Richard Nixon during a Presidential piss break, conducting himself at all times like an acid-tongued and trigger-happy nightmare version of Monsieur Hulot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The crux of the film is Thompson\u2019s charged friendship with a civil rights lawyer named Lazlo (Peter Boyle), a wild dreamer who grows increasingly radical in his opposition to straight society, even as the bright light of Sixties\u2019 idealism grows dimmer by the hour.\u00a0 Lazlo is based on real life Chicano lawyer, author, and activist Oscar \u201cZeta\u201d Acosta, who Thompson immortalized as the monstrous Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas<\/em>. Here, Acosta is renamed Lazlo, and his Chicano ethnicity is scrubbed, a change precipitated during pre-production<\/a> by vocal opposition from Chicano groups over the casting of the Anglo Boyle. (The more things change, eh?) <\/p>\n\n\n\n That such a drastic change had to be made in the first place speaks to the slapdash way in which the film came together, and it\u2019s especially ironic given that it all began with the optioning of \u201cThe Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat\u201d, Thompson\u2019s obituary for Acosta (who disappeared in 1974 while traveling through Mexico). Thompson would serve as a consultant on the troubled production, working closely with screenwriter John Kaye on the script, though he went on to disavow the film, with the exception of Murray\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s easy to understand why\u2014the film is desperately unfunny, while also coming off as shamelessly self-serving. Characters constantly describe Thompson as a brilliant and intimidating figure, though he only ever comes off as an obnoxious pest. The film intermittently remembers that it\u2019s supposed to be a political satire, but it\u2019s never less interesting or more grating than when it adopts a faux-righteous air of fury on behalf of the embittered counterculture. But It’s mostly a by-the-numbers slobs versus snobs comedy in the vein of Animal House<\/em>, minus anything that made that film successful (though not for lack of trying: the filmmakers go so far as to recast Neidermeyer actor Mark Metcalf in practically the same role). <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the film\u2019s biggest problem isn\u2019t its nonexistent plot, haphazard structure or reliance on broad slapstick\u2014all of which could work well within an shaggy-dog stoner comedy\u2014but rather, the main thread, which traces the relationship between Thompson and Lazlo over the course of several years. At no point do we buy that these two would even be stoner running buddies, let alone the mutant soulmates the film presents them as. Even disregarding the white washing, Boyle feels completely wrong for the role; there\u2019s something to be said for casting against type, but ten years after playing the quintessential hippie-hating Hard Hat in Joe<\/em>, Boyle simply flounders as that character\u2019s antithesis.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/where-the-buffalo-roam3.jpg\")
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