Terry Gilliam's film based on Hunter S Thompson's 'unfilmable' novel is a twisted, outlandish venture into the mind of a warped junkie, a reporter travelling to Nevada to cover a Hells Angels motorcycle race, along with his Samoan attorney Dr Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro, who gained nearly 80 kg for his role).

'We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold,' is the line that opens the movie, as a red convertible roars from right to left, towards Vegas. 'We had two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multicoloured uppers, downers, screamers, laughers. Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, two dozen amyls.'

The narrator of the story is Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp), a balding, stumbling shell of a man, constantly smoking or doing drugs, his body overloaded with substance abuse. He is in a permanent stupor throughout the film, constantly consuming drugs every time the camera pans on him.

He is the reporter, the main character of the film, and he is in such a daze that after the motorcycle race is over, he's not even sure who has won. So, sitting cramped in his increasingly trashed hotel apartment, he begins clacking away mumbo-jumbo on his typewriter, desperately trying to make sense of the seemingly frenzied world surrounding him.

Brilliant psychedelic insanity, and Depp incandescent as a firefly on acid.