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| “ | As your attorney, I advise you to drive at top speed, it'll be a goddamn miracle if we can get there before you turn into a wild animal... | „ |
| ~ Dr. Gonzo's most famous line. |
Dr. Gonzo is the main antagonist of the 1971 novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream and the 1998 film of the same name. He is Raoul Duke's psychotic and pedophiliac attorney who travels with him in order to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race in Las Vegas, which transpires into a quest to consume every drug since 1544 A.D.
He was portrayed by Benicio del Toro, who also played the title character in the 2010 remake of The Wolf Man, Dario in License to Kill, Jack Rafferty in Sin City, Aaron Hallam in The Hunted and DJ in Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi. He was inspired by the late Hunter S. Thompson's real attorney, Oscar Zeta Acosta.
Personality[]
Despite being a fully fledged lawyer with a degree, Gonzo is constantly committing crimes, doing drugs, having sex and is even hinted to be a child predator. While in public (and also sober), Gonzo appears to a completely normal individual, shown to have been somewhat soft spoken, sarcastic and misanthropic. While on drugs, however, Gonzo points guns at people, rapes women, is extremely paranoid and fearful and even kidnaps a young girl named, Lucy.
Biography[]
In 1971, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo are assigned to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race in Las Vegas, Nevada. During the ride there from Barstow, California, Gonzo and Duke pick up a hitchhiker while on serious amounts of mescaline. They inform the hitchhiker of their mission and the purchase of their rented red Chevrolet Impala convertible. After this, the hitchhiker ditches them, most likely to inform the police, in which Gonzo then drugs Duke with LSD.
After Gonzo and Duke find a hotel, Duke travels to the race, but fires their photographer, Lacerda and abandons the mission. Duke and Gonzo travel to a carnival in Las Vegas where they go on a drug titled, "Devil's Ether". Soon after, Gonzo is frightened by the atmosphere of the Bazooko Circus casino, who is later ditched by Duke. Raoul returns to the hotel, where he finds Gonzo supposedly attempting to kill himself in the bathtub, fully clothed, with a tape recorder playing "White Rabbit". Duke locks the now homicidal Gonzo in the bathroom and passes out.
The next day, Raoul wakes up with a missing Gonzo, to which Duke tries to leave town until he decides to call Gonzo on a payphone, who informs Duke about the telegram Gonzo had sent Duke, to which the latter had ignored. Duke is informed that Gonzo wants to reunite with him at Flamingo Las Vegas hotel in order to cover up a district attorney's convention of narcotics. Duke goes to Gonzo's room and is attacked by a young girl named Lucy, who Gonzo had supposedly kidnapped and molested (which is what actually happened in the novel, while in the film, it's only implied). Gonzo explains to Duke that he drugged Lucy with LSD in order to meet Barbra Streisand and that he and Duke have to ditch Lucy by going to another hotel.
Duke and Gonzo check into another hotel and accompany each other to a convention about marijuana addicts while high on cocaine. At their new hotel, Duke and Gonzo get a call from Lucy as Gonzo answers and pretends to have been beat up by thugs while Raoul uses Gonzo's bottle of adrenochrome in order to calm his paranoia. Duke eventually has his trip, but blacks out.
Duke wakes up in the deserted and trashed room with Gonzo once again missing. Raoul finds a tape recorder and uses it to recover some memories of what had happened the previous night. Duke remembers various events including Gonzo holding a waitress hostage with a knife after she denies his request to have sex with her in the back, Duke trying to convince a cleaning lady that Gonzo and himself are police officers investigating a drug ring and the two attempting to buy an orangutan at the circus which ends with the orangutan going insane and Gonzo having mass paranoia. Gonzo is then dropped off at the airport by Duke, who finishes his article and speeds off to Los Angeles.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Gonzo most likely dies after the ending of the film as in 1974, 3 years after the events of the film, the inspiration for Gonzo, Thompson's attorney, Oscar Zeta Acosta went missing at that point in Mazatlán, Mexico and is presumed dead.
- In the 1980 film, Where the Buffalo Roam, the first film based on Thompson's work, the Acosta character is instead named, Carl Lazlo.
- His nationality could be Samoan.