Hunter S. Thompson: The Final 24 Hours
For its access to interviewees and the archive alone this should have been a better documentary, but its proposition, the Final 24 hours of Hunter S Thompson’s life, stops it from being excellent. It’s too morbidly obsessed with why the great good man killed himself (just count how many times we’re told HST was in “constant pain”), his addictions, his operations and the method by which he died. All fine and dandy for Forensics 101, but Thompson deserves better.
The problem stems from TV commissioners, who don’t trust their audiences to sit through a straight documentary on Hunter S Thompson (or Jim Morrison, John Belushi or any of the other talents who’ve been included in the Final 24 series) without having a gimmick, a hook to keep them watching during the adverts. Most of the time these gimmicks just get in the way of what is usually a fascinating, full and inspiring life.
Okay enough from me, here’s the blurb from Biography:
He was an author trapped in the body of a rock star. His drug-fuelled adventures were legendary and became the basis of one of the classics of 20th century literature. Thompson’s constant questioning of authority and wild antics made him a hero for a generation of rebels across the globe. But in the end it wasn’t enough. A lifetime of alcohol and drug abuse was taking their toll and at 67, with a broken leg, two hip operations and in chronic pain Thompson could no longer live up to the legend he’d created. On February 20, 2005, he decided to end it all with one of his favorite possessions, a Smith and Wesson 45. We chart the life of this troubled genius and uncover why a bullet to the head was the only way out.
Previously on DM