That's actually perhaps a bit harsh, but at 110 minutes the over the top acting and tedious 2 characters in a room trying to "out-strange" each other, first half of the film will turn most people away. The two great lead actors make the, can you top this for over the top performance, moments interesting only because they are such good actors, but at it's heart this is a drug or alcohol script, culled from a novel with much internal thought that can't really be done as a film anyway. Writer/producer Terry Southern was an unfocused, from what I've heard increasing bitter man, and his flashes of inspiration here and there just make the rest of it that much more unforgivable. Sure it's a product of the era it was made in, but the best of those can still speak to today, most of this is just a collection of bizarre behavior (people having sex with chickens, flashes of photos of mutant babies) with no sense of reality and nothing but a, "I wrote the script in a brothel with no sleep and 5 bottles of scotch in me." feel.
There is a funny telephone conversation near the end that reminds you of some of the phone conversations in Dr Strangelove. But by that point in the movie it's totally out of place.
There is really for the first hour no sense of purpose at all, then something that resembles a plot emerges and it all ends in a rather memorable scene that really is just the "I woke up sober and wanting to die" bad hangover ending.
The photography is occasionally fascinating, Gordon Willis first feature. The movie is not a reflection of insanity in the world or of the times, it's a reflection of substance abuse masquerading as a exploration of a crazy world. The bottoming out and turning of 60's ideals into recreational drug use as an excuse for self examination. It's the drunk who opens his mouth after saying, "do you like see food." A waste of talent and time ultimately.
There is a funny telephone conversation near the end that reminds you of some of the phone conversations in Dr Strangelove. But by that point in the movie it's totally out of place.
There is really for the first hour no sense of purpose at all, then something that resembles a plot emerges and it all ends in a rather memorable scene that really is just the "I woke up sober and wanting to die" bad hangover ending.
The photography is occasionally fascinating, Gordon Willis first feature. The movie is not a reflection of insanity in the world or of the times, it's a reflection of substance abuse masquerading as a exploration of a crazy world. The bottoming out and turning of 60's ideals into recreational drug use as an excuse for self examination. It's the drunk who opens his mouth after saying, "do you like see food." A waste of talent and time ultimately.