Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S. Thompson 2007

As this definitive biography makes clear, the more you try to pin down iconic writer, drinker and lunatic Hunter S. Thompson, the harder it gets to separate man from myth. Even in close-up or talking directly to camera, there is something about him that remains strangely inscrutable. In a rich array of archival footage, home movies and intimate recollections, director Alex Gibney (Enron, Taxi to the Dark Side) zeros in on the frantic 60s and 70s when Thompson rose to fame and then infamy with his own brand of maverick, subjective journalism. The portrait that emerges is of a shrewd political observer and terminal maniac, who cultivated his angry, gun-toting cokehead persona until, sadly, it devoured him. Extracts from Thompson's most celebrated works are narrated throughout in high-Thompsonian style by Johnny Depp, who paid for the spectacular funeral that ends this film on a glorious note. — BZ. "Gonzo is as energetically flawed and rivetingly reckless as its subject, and somehow that seems exactly right." — James Rocchi, Cinematical