Plot Summary

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is set in 1972, a turbulent period when Nixon is president, young Americans are dying in Vietnam, and the ideals of the 1960s are rapidly disintegrating. Against this backdrop, journalist Raoul Duke attempts to cope with the collapse of the American Dream in the only way he knows—through excess, irony, and self-destruction.

Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his unhinged companion, the enigmatic attorney Doctor Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro), travel together through the deserts toward Las Vegas, ostensibly to cover a major motorcycle race. However, the journey quickly spirals into a chemically fueled descent into hallucination and chaos. As their car hurtles down the highway, the two men battle visions of attacking bats while radio broadcasts about the Vietnam War fade into meaningless background noise.

Reality and illusion become increasingly indistinguishable as the pair navigate hotels, casinos, and neon-lit corridors of excess. When they briefly pick up a hitchhiker, Duke and Gonzo struggle to appear normal, awkwardly attempting to explain their “assignment” while barely maintaining a grip on sanity.

What begins as a journalistic road trip transforms into a savage, darkly comic exploration of paranoia, escapism, and moral decay. Through its surreal imagery and fractured narrative, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas captures the death of a countercultural dream and exposes the emptiness beneath America’s pursuit of pleasure, freedom, and meaning.