For as celebrated a writer as Hunter S. Thompson is, his pungent prose might not have become as iconic if it wasn’t for the wonderfully lurid drawings that accompanied it. Created by artist Ralph Steadman and incorporating ink splatters and ghoulish countenances, these illustrations brought Thompson’s inspired ramblings to life, upping the words’ paranoia and vividness. But while Thompson, who’s been dead for nine years, remains immortalized, Steadman doesn’t have as high a media profile. You know the artwork even if you don’t know the man.
For No Good Reason hopes to correct that imbalance, steadfastly singing Steadman’s praises. But this documentary’s presentation is off-putting enough that it does more harm than good. Steadman comes across as a smart, interesting-enough fellow, but director Charlie Paul adopts an air of mannered eccentricity that’s meant to mirror the artist’s disturbingly offbeat drawings. Better that For No Good Reason had simply stood back and let Steadman’s work stand on its own considerable merits.
The documentary is framed around a visit by Johnny Depp to Steadman’s home. A longtime friend of Thompson who played a version of the author in the film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Depp is close to Steadman as well, so the hope is that their exchanges will be looser and more engaging than the typical talking-head interview. But Depp’s onscreen presence doesn’t add much to the proceedings: With his typical arch-Zen remove, the actor fawns over Steadman’s work as he’s creating it, but there’s not much insight to be found. You wish that Paul had focused more on Steadman himself as he explains his instinctive process, which can be quite illuminating. (For instance, a violent explosion of paint on paper may suggest to Steadman an animal or a human face, which he’ll then try to pull out of the seemingly shapeless color blob with additional brushstrokes and fiddling.)
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