At least, that was the fantasy.
Waters grasps the essential dilemma.
The '60s resist filmic representation in part because of the era's delusional quality more than a few who lived through it imagined themselves the protagonists, or the directors, of an ongoing movie. Abbie brawling with undercover cops at the Free Store, staging grotesque hippie soirees in the East Village, sliding around in the mud with Anita as preparation for the Yippie demonstrations in Chicago. Crude and physically overbearing where the actual Hoffman was puckish and slight, Vincent D'Onofrio appears to take the film's title literally although he doesn't steal the movie so much as squelch it. The actor guards each scene like a junkyard dog, obnoxiously smirking and swaggering through a world of cutouts. Meanwhile, the filmmakers emphasize his character's hysterical paranoia.