‘Gonzo: The Life and Works of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’ does a pretty good job at being entertaining and presenting the cool side of one of America’s best known journalists, but fails to deliver some of the most important information about the writer. Mr. Alex Gibney, who is the documentary’s director, lags in presenting episodes of Thompson’s life that show the viewer what he already knows about the author, without moving forward to showing the reasons and the events that made him seek a career as a journalist.

Hunter S. Thompson became one of the top figures of the American journalism in the 1960s, when he took advantage of the more libertine times which permitted journalists more freedom when writing their articles. He rose to fame as he created and promoted the “gonzo” style of journalism, which meant that the writer had to avoid being objective, one of the basic rules of writing an article, and had to get involved in the action.

Indeed, Mr. Hunter S. Thompson was there where the action was, right in the middle of it, and most of the times he became the main character of his articles. He was known to have experimented with psychedelic drugs, and to have been a hard drinker. He used to go hunting with a semi-automatic riffle.

Hunter S. Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jack Roberts, an insurance adjuster and to Virginia Davidson-Ray, a secretary. Thompson had problems in school because of his insubordinate character that made him lose a lot of jobs all through his early career. He joined the US Air Force soon after serving half of a 60 days sentence for accessory to robbery.

After coming back from the army, he started working for numerous papers. He published his first story for the Rolling Stones magazine while running for the sheriff of the Pitkin County, Colorado, where he almost won the elections in spite of his unrealistic promises and ideas or his uncommon slogan, “Freak Power.”

He invented gonzo journalism while on a very tight deadline for an article, when, seeing that he had no time to finish it, he mailed editors ripped pages from his notebook.

Hunter S. Thompson died in 2005 at his Woody Creek, Colorado, farm, after shooting himself in the head with a firearm. His ashes were fired from a gun on top of a 153 foot tower during his funeral ceremony.

Mr. Thompson’s life had already been at the core of two other fiction films, ‘Where the Buffalo Roam’ and ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,’ which was based on the book that brought him much critical acclaim. Johnny Depp, a good friend of the writer, starred in this movie.

Mr. Alex Gibney went through a lot of family photos, diary pages and family movies to document his film. ‘Gonzo’ features a series of interviews with the writer’s friends. Johnny Depp pays his homage to the late journalist again, as he is the narrator of the documentary.