For No Good Reason, film review: British artist Ralph Steadman emerges as an equally subversive figure as Hunter S Thompson

(Nc) Charlie Paul, 89 mins

Geoffrey Macnab
Thursday 29 May 2014 21:19 BST
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British artist Ralph Steadman in 'For No Good Reason'
British artist Ralph Steadman in 'For No Good Reason'

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British artist Ralph Steadman often appeared to be playing Sancho Panza to gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson's Don Quixote.

This low-key, workmanlike documentary offers a more balanced account both of their collaboration and of Steadman's career as a whole. Johnny Depp visits Steadman in his studio and watches him at work.

Steadman, a melancholy interviewee, corroborates most of Thompson's anecdotes about drug-fuelled excess but also gives details about how the duo worked together.

He credits Thompson as the catalyst who transformed his own artistic approach but emerges as an equally subversive figure in his own right.

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