I was picking up those old fear and loathing vibes on this campaign’s trail until I learned some of the names behind this picture were Duke and Acosta. It was then I realized I was in the right country. Thankfully not bat country, with huge manta rays swooping and diving around the car. This quest, Duke Ross’s The Ballad of Straw Hat Sam, was a completely different trip. Too weird to live, too rare to die.
Straw Hat Sam’s ballad is more than a sexy-hatted man’s rage against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. It is his own private odyssey in which he seeks to obtain the finest alcoholic beverage ever to grace the taste buds of mankind. A drop known only in myth and legend as Angel Teat Whiskey.
His whole plan to set out and retrieve the fabled whiskey, Sam happily narrates to a diner waitress over coffee before leaving, shooting a rando in the face, and hooking up the Ted to his Bill, his Dr. Gonzo, a guy he decides to call Bucket — courtesy of the shape of the hat said character is wearing. Bucket is just quietly reading, and though he barely knows Sam, he surrenders his life to the quest.
“…quest to obtain the finest alcoholic beverage ever…”
But the path to the whiskey is beset on all sides by the tyrannical plans of a silently psychotic red panda, the intervention of nihilistic spirits, stupid choices, and silly riddles. There are risk-taking, law-breaking, God-forsaking twists and turns on Sam’s wild ride as he attempts to break on through to the other side.
Its South Park meets Withnail and I in this acid-drenched, bourbon-soaked satirical adventure. Tommy Chong features as a member of the voice cast, with further live-action laughs coming from the fetish-favoring, legal eagles Birdie (Jennica Anusua) and Dennis (Rahul Barkley), who are hot on the trail of the homicide, perpetuated by Sam, for no good reason.
Duke Ross, as writer and director, as well as the voice of Straw-Hat Sam and others, has made a concentrated yet audacious dose of adult animation that is at once both confounding and comically outrageous. Like a stiff swallow of its hallowed fire-water, The Ballad of Straw Hat Sam burns the tongue and blows the mind. All while leaving you with a sweet aftertaste and a strange little smile on your face.
"…at once both confounding and comically outrageous."
