It's been over a year since I saw Gonzo at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, so I guess the press embargo has been lifted....
A good, cumulative retrospective of Thompson's life, but Hunter fans have seen most of this elsewhere and, though fun (it's Hunter; it's can't not be fun), it has a lot of problems.
The film has plenty going for it, including significant celebrity participation (i.e. Johnny Depp reading passages from Hunter's work), but director Alex Gibney really stumbles in certain places, notably by visually reenacting multiple passages. The only one that works is the "Taco Stand" scene from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." The dialogue here is strong enough to stand on its own, and Gibney honors it by shooting Duke and Dr. Gonzo from below the waist. However, in a passage describing a werewolf running through the streets, Gibney turns to a literal interpretation, and the scene's hokiness goes beyond ridiculous.
It's nice to see footage from Hunter's funeral and in-depth coverage of the McGovern campaign, but Gibney loses significant credibility by failing to mention or depict the years of physical pain that led to Hunter's suicide. In an interview included in Entertainment Weekly, the director says, "'I think it's bullshit, the idea that Hunter's killing himself is a heroic act — it's the act of a narcissist. I never met [Thompson], so I went in fresh and cold, and I wasn't on anybody's side.''
Try as Gibney may, Hunter is automatically a polarizing character and any effort to depict his life is going to include honest footage of Hunter's unforgivingly consistent personality. Such footage will give viewers with all ranges of interest in the good doctor an honest portrayal of him, regardless of the personal bias of a rogue director. To omit the reason behind Hunter's suicide is doing the man and those who followed his career a disservice. As such, Gibney's editorializing handicaps a potentially great work.