by Marlon Brando, to appear in a snuff film in exchange for money for his family. It premiered at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival to generally negative reviews. Variety called it "a turgid and unbelievable neo-western", and Time Out wrote that "besides the implausibilities, the direction has two fatal flaws: it's both tediously slow and hugely narcissistic as the camera focuses repeatedly on Depp's bandana'd head and rippling torso". Due to the reviews, Depp did not release The Brave in the U.S. Depp was a fan and friend of writer Hunter S. Thompson, and played his alter ego Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Terry Gilliam's film adaptation of Thompson's pseudo-biographical novel of the same name. It was a box-office failure and polarized critics. Later that year, Depp made a brief cameo in Mika Kaurismäki's L.A. Without a Map (1998). Depp appeared in three films in 1999. The first was the sci-fi thriller The Astronaut's Wife, co-starring Charlize Theron, which was not a commercial or critical success. The second, Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate, starred Depp as a seller of old books who becomes entangled in a mystery. It was moderately more successful with audiences but received mixed reviews. The third was Burton's adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, where Depp played Ichabod Crane opposite Christina Ricci and Christopher Walken. For his performance, Depp took inspiration from Angela Lansbury, Roddy McDowall and Basil Rathbone, saying he "always thought of Ichabod as a very delicate, fragile person who was maybe a little too in touch with his feminine side, like a frightened little girl". Sleepy Hollow was a commercial and critical success. Depp's first film release of the new millennium was British-French drama The Man Who Cried (2000), directed by Sally Potter and starring him as a Roma horseman opposite Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchett, and John Turturro. It was not a critical success. Depp also had a supporting role in Julian Schnabel's critically acclaimed Before Night Falls (2000). His final film of 2000 was Hallström's critically and commercially successful Chocolat, in which he played a Roma man and the love interest of the main character, Juliette Binoche. Depp's next roles were both based on historical persons. In Blow (2001), he starred as cocaine smuggler George Jung, who was part of the Medellín Cartel in the 1980s. The film underperformed at the box office and received mixed