As a prelude, the film opens with Hunter writing on the morning of 9/11 about the planes going into the Twin towers. Johnny Depp reads it aloud -- really classic Hunter. The film then moves to the mid to late-60's, Chicago '68, Hubert Humphrey. You can read any number of film reviews for those sections and for details on those interviewed in the movie, from Tom Wolfe, Jann Wenner, Jimmy Buffett, Pat Robertson, Gary Hart and Jimmy Carter to Hunter's ex-wife Sandy, son Juan, my favorite Sheriff, Bob Braudis and of course, his second wife and my good friend, Anita. (Also see the New York Times review.)

After that, we get to the 1972 campaign, with George McGovern running on a platform of immediate withdrawal from Vietnam. He was for amnesty for draft dodgers, a cut in the defense budget, he was pro-choice and pro-women's rights. (Hunter covered the campaign for Rolling Stone from Dec. 1971, writing in campaign diary style.)[More...]

McGovern says in the film he's sick of the old men in Washington sitting around air-conditioned rooms and dreaming up wars our young kids can die in.

Hunter hated Hubert Humprhey and Ed Muskie, in large part for supporting Mayor Daley in Chicago during and following the 1968 convention. Chicago galvanized Hunter. He called Humphrey a "treacherous, gutless old war hero." He blasted Nixon continuously from his "barbie doll wife" and children to his being "a cheap crook and mercilous war criminal" who "slithered into the White House." He was "so crooked he needed servants to screw on his pants in the morning."

Hunter focused his rage on Muskie, who was competing with Humphrey and McGovern for the nomination. He even made stuff up about him. Like a rumor about Muskie's being treated with a strange Brazilian drug called Ibogaine. Amazingly, Rolling Stone published it. The rumor began to spread, and Hunter started writing that all Muskie's strange behaviors were the result of his being treated with Ibogaine. Pretty funny stuff. Then Hunter said he made the rumor up, pointing out he never said it was true, only that it was a rumor and would explain his behavior..

Others interviewed in the film say Hunter initially didn't think McGovern could win, he was just along for the ride. And then, McGovern picked up steam. He realized McGovern might have a chance.

But McGovern became mainstream, going from Rolling Stone to the cover of Time and Newsweek. He got the 1972 Democratic nomination in Miami.

McGovern seemed to be a lock, for a week or so, until July 13 when he started to stumble. The biggest thing that went wrong: His choice of Thomas Eagleton for the vice presidency. Eagleton, it turned out, had been hospitalized for depression and treated with electroshock therapy.

Eagleton was the peace offering to the establishment that Muskie or Humphrey would have chosen. Hunter turned on McGovern, calling him a compromiser and a sell-out.

Finally, Eagleton stepped aside. It made McGovern look like a waffler. The campaign never recovered. McGovern complains that the press over-focused on his mishandling of Eagleton rather than the issues of the day like the war and Watergate.

In the film, McGovern gives a rather lame excuse for choosing and sticking by Eagleton. Gary Hart has a better explanation, but in essence, it's that politics is about compromise and it's unrealistic to expect anything else.

Hunter lost his appetite for writing about the election. He wrote that on election day, he'd get out of bed and go to the poling place and vote for McGovern but then he'd go right back home and go to bed and watch tv.

And of course, Nixon won by a landslide. According to reporter Tim Crouse, Hunter went from mockery to rage and then despair. Crouse also makes the point that in many ways, the nightmare we are in today with Bush is the same as the nightmare we were in back then.

Hunter later said it was a tragedy that McGovern lost because he really understood what this country could have been.

That's the end of any political comparisons I see between then and now. My point: I think Hunter would jump on a candidate who moved to the center after campaigning on leftist platforms and exciting unprecedented numbers of young voters to become engaged in politics.

Anita has a good post today on Hunter and the Politics of "We" -- she'll also have an article on this at Huffington Post later tonight or tomorrow.

The film portrays Hunter as then becoming disillusioned with politics. But he was blown away by a speech Carter gave to lawyers and judges on law day in May, 1974. The speech was about the defects in our judicial system. Carter quoted Bob Dylan "I ain't going to work on Maggie's farm no more." He criticized the lawyers for blocking an ethics bill. He blasted them and the bar association for their treatment of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hunter said the speech changed his life. He wrote a cover story for Rolling Stone endorsing Carter. He went around the country supporting Carter, playing the speech.

Oddly, the film drops the subject here and switches gears to complaints by Hunter's ex-wife and a few others about Hunter's drug use and how a trip to Africa to cover the Ali-Forman fight started a decline that they claim lasted the rest of his life. (As Anita points out Hunter wrote more in the last five years of his life than he did the 15 years before that. His ESPN columns Hey Rube were terrific writing. He also published his second volume of letters and another book, Kingdom of Fear.)

One fun section of the movie is Hunter's run for Sheriff in Aspen. The film is worth seeing for that section alone. His platform was land use (anti-development)and drug reform. Drugs should be free and those who sold it for money should be publicly shamed on the courthouse lawn.

My favorite single shot in the movie: Keith Richards entering Hunter's kitchen with a hat, black and white scarf and huge smile. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to stand in Hunter's kitchen again without thinking of that shot. If I can find a screen shot, I'll post it.

Minor complaints with the film: Too much of Hunter's ex-wife Sandy and not enough Anita or Juan for my taste. It makes sense on one level since the film concentrates on the 60's to 80's when Sandy was married to him, but she makes a lot of criticisms about the final years of Hunter's life when she wasn't around him and Anita disagrees strongly with her assessment.

Hunter's ex wife is wrong, wrong, wrong, on this. John Nichols from the Nation (who wasn't too lazy to research Hunter's later work) has already said that some of Hunter's most astute political writing is tucked away in his sports writing after 2000. Most of you already know, if you had paid attention, that Hunter wrote more in the last 5 years of his life than he had in the previous 15 combined.

....Some journalists will never accept the fact that Hunter GOT AWAY WITH IT. He wrote what he wanted and when he wanted for his entire career and never sold out an ounce of his soul. He had fun, he moved mountains, and surrounded himself with those that loved him. He was sexy (even for the short time he was in a wheelchair!), smart and productive all the way to the end. Those of you reviewers and "friends", ex girlfriends, and jealous ex editors who can't accept the beauty that was Hunter, it's time you step aside.

Also the sound track is pretty lame. There are plenty of better '60s hits they could have used. Although ending the film with Warren Zevon's "Send Lawyers, Guns and Money" brought a big smile to my face, remembering how much Hunter loved criminal defense lawyers.

Bottom line: I liked the parts of the film about Hunter's writing and politics, the photography and videos and the historical perspective. I didn't like the portrayal of Hunter as a has-been or failure at the end of his life and I don't think it's accurate. It doesn't match my recollection of him during his last two years (the only years I knew him) nor does Anita, who knew him best during the last five years of his life, agree.

My recommendation: By all means, see the film. But then read or re-read Hunter's writings. They remain both brilliant and a great read.