Review of Where The Buffalo Roam

Introduction

A legend is a lot harder to cement than to create. You can keep yourself in the public eye with all manner of hair brained plots and reckless abandon during your living years but, post-death, you need something that will stick in the memory - usually some sort of messy suicide involving guns, automobiles or copious amounts of banned substances.

Widely acknowledged as someone whose demise could have been caused by any one of the above (although, in the end, the bullet through the head did it), it was recently announced that the ashes of the legendary Gonzo writer Hunter S Thompson were to be loaded into a cannon and blown through the air above his home in Aspen, Colorado - an epilogue of oddness to a life which saw its fair share of excess and eccentricity.

These characteristics were portrayed on film most recently by Johnny Depp in `Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas` (1998), a box office flop but cult favourite amongst those sections of society who spend over 67% of their waking hours out of their minds on chemical substitutes for genuine experiences. Almost two decades previously, however, Mr Bill Murray played Thompson in `Where the Buffalo Roam`, an account of the `trips` Hunter had either alongside or `in search of` his wayward lawyer Carl Lazlo.

The film is made up from several of Thompson`s books, including `Fear and Loathing …` itself, charting the travels along the west coast and beyond; on campaign trails, on airplanes, in courtrooms and, most crucially, on the road. On the way, Hotel rooms become football pitches, the president becomes introduced to Thompson`s wild ways in an impromptu toilet interview and the surreal becomes all too real

Video

The film is divided into those scenes which are wonderfully shot and bursting with colour, and those which look dreadful and must have been shot in the same stream of consciousness that Hunter S Thompson wrote. Whilst this may have been exciting, not to mention `far out` in the literary world back in the 1970s, it really doesn`t work on film in this context

A shame, when you see the opening scene in all its Aspen-ranch glory. For almost two minutes, beautiful scenery meets the lens of fantastically timed panning cameras and it works REALLY well. At the same time, however, you realise that the greatest part of the film is over before a word of dialogue has even been spoken, which is disconcerting to say the least.

It may be a criticism too far, but you get the feeling that maybe the Director (Art Linson - who only ever directed one other film before becoming a producer) didn`t give a damn what the film looked like, considering that there is either far too much going on, or else nothing is happening whatsoever. It would be easy to attribute this to being akin to the unpredictable nature of its subject matter but, in all honesty, that would just be far too lazy.

Audio

As advertised whenever the film is mentioned, the soundtrack is certainly its greatest asset. After all, what would a 60s/70s road movie be without the likes of Dylan and Hendrix popping up whilst the intrepid explorers pull up outside a municipal building or speed through the Nevada desert? Although, somewhat predictably, it`s Hendrix`s cover of `All along the watchtower` which surfaces.

Canadian blues folk superstar (relatively speaking) Neil Young provides the original music to the picture, which contains several well honed versions of `Home on the range` in various styles along with plenty of stoner road music to accompany proceedings. How kind of him.

Features

Although the extremely kind producers of the DVD didn`t think we`d want our free spirited anti-establishment heads to be filled with all that `extra features` nonsense, they have been kind enough to include a menu screen, chapter selection AND audio options. It`s like all your Christmases etc .

Conclusion

That `Fear and Loathing` was able to take a small part of this film and turn it into a more accomplished and unequivocally better film points out the main downfall in its predecessor`s construction - a lack of detail. In trying to condense the exploits of almost 4 regular road movies into just one neat 95 minute presentation, `Where the Buffalo Roam` loses a great deal of the charm of its peers.

After all, you would think that a road movie, certainly in the traditional sense, would have a long and winding plot which nestled neatly inside a set time frame, yet this is a film which spans about five years, with one decade meeting the next in an era of free love. Of course, in the mind of Thompson, years would have melted into the next - such was his penchant for being `out of it` for so long (and so admittedly the source material may have been blurry on the whole time and `space issue`), but such is the feeling of disorientation that, even when the film reaches its conclusion and the ever elusive Lazlo finally returns to greet Hunter, nothing feels resolved. In fact, you get the feeling that the picture could carry on for several hours longer and you wouldn`t discover anything new or take anything away from it.

One detail that may shock and detract people`s enjoyment is that Murray himself is not as likeable as in any of his other roles. There is none of the wit and dry humour which won him an army of new converts post-Lost in Translation, nor any of the loveable rogue sentiments which guided the heyday of his career from Ghostbusters right through to Groundhog Day.

Of course, career wise, this is no big deal; `Where the Buffalo roam` was Murray`s first major film role after being a mere comedian, and he has gone on to produce a body of work that most classically trained actors would salivate over. Unfortunately though, for all of the praise that has been given to Murray for his portrayal of the King of Gonzo (how much he looks and sounds like Thompson for example), there is no trace of the Murray that audiences would take into their hearts over the next decade or so, and beyond.

With so many more cohesive and enjoyable alternatives out there, it`s hard to see how `Where the Buffalo roam` really stands a chance on the shelves in DVD land. An All-encompassing biopic of Hunter S Thompson would surely be a logical move for a studio to make, considering how many questions this 25 year old picture leaves unanswered.

We`ve had the trailer, now it`s time for the main picture.