comedy film
which loosely depicts Hunter S. Thompson
's rise to fame in the 1970s and his relationship with Chicano
attorney and activist Oscar Zeta Acosta
. Art Linson
directed the picture, while Bill Murray
portrayed the author and Peter Boyle
portrayed Acosta, who is referred to in the film as Carl Lazlo, Esq. A number of other names, places, and details of Thompson's life are also changed.
Thompson's obituary for Acosta, "The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat," which appeared in Rolling Stone
in October 1977, serves as the basis of the film, although screenplay writer John Kaye
drew from several other works, including Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
, The Great Shark Hunt
, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
No need to panic. I'll just lash together a few raw facts, a little bit of Negro wisdom, and this nightmare is over.
[Urging his dog to attack a Nixon mannequin] Bronco ... Nixon.
There, chew on that gibberish for awhile, you heartless scum!
I was a working journalist, a hired geek of sorts, and Lazlo was great company and sometimes a great lawyer. It was a fast, strange time and we worked in a fast, strange way.
[Reacting to a police officer's testimony in court] You were looking for a bomb in a pack of cigarettes?
I hate to advocate drugs or liquor, violence, insanity to anyone. But in my case it's worked.
You couldn't invent someone like Carl Lazlo. He was a ... he was one of a kind. He was a mutant. A real heavyweight water buffalo type ... who could chew his way through a concrete wall and spit out the other side covered with lime and chalk and look good in doing it.
Super sunday. Dawn. My recollections of the last twelve hours are very dim. All that I know for certain is that shortly after I checked in, two third-world drug abusers dressed as hotel employees forced their way into my room; ransacked it, drank all my liquor, did all my drugs, stole my dinner. The security precautions aren't beefed up at this hotel; I'm looking for safer accomodations. It's a sad state of affairs when this reporter has to go heavily armed to breakfast.