The Rum Diary (2011)
Certified: 16
Duration: 120 minutes
Directed by: Bruce Robinson
Starring: Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli, Amber Heard, Richard Jenkins, Giovanni Ribisi, Amaury Nolasco, Marshall Bell
KRS release
Atmospheric and exotic, The Rum Diary is a cold and aloof adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name.
Not as over-the-top as adaptations of other novels by the same author (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), this film left me disengaged. The Rum Diary is the tale of a writer finding his steps.
It is set in the early 1960s, when Thompson was in his early years.
Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) is an aspiring novelist but he still cannot get the words right.
He has just arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico to start working at the San Juan Star.
Here he meets with stressed-out editor Edward Lotterman (Richard Jenkins) who likes Paul and sees talent in him.
The staff of the Star includes the brilliant, always absent, psyched-out Hitler fan Moburg (Giovanni Ribisi) and the cock-fighting fan, alcoholic photographer Bob Salas (Michael Rispoli), with whom Paul will eventually share a flat. This happens when he builds up an incredibly high tab from the mini-bar at the hotel.
Paul is trying hard to stay off the booze. He meets Hal Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart) who had once worked for the Star. He is now well-connected and is involved in public relations for politicians and shady businessmen. He has some investors lined up to transform a paradise island into a hotel complex. He wants Paul to write up articles that will placate the masses and smoothen things out.
Paul is on board with Sanderson’s help and he is soon lost in lust after Chenault (Amber Heard), Sanderson’s girlfriend. Chenault is living life dangerously and is teasing Paul along. Meanwhile, Paul enters a world of booze and drugs that, combined with politics, lust and cockerel fights, can soon lead to a wave of trouble for all concerned.
Director Bruce Robinson has managed to deliver a sort of Caribbean noir film. This is a film that has a stench of poverty, alcohol, inebriation and staggers around like a happy drunk.
The Rum Diary is interesting and very watchable for the patient, but ultimately too rambling for the casual viewer. This is a dissection of the American Dream, a close look at the worms under the brightly-lit façade. One scene in particular is particularly surreal: Johnny Depp walks across a paradisiacal beach with naval guns shooting in the background while discussing how to destroy this paradise and turn it into a mega complex hotel.
Mr Depp plays his usual, befuddled persona that we are now so accustomed to while Aaron Eckhart is as slimy as they come.
It is, however, Amber Heard who really stands out. Here she really looks like a Scarlett Johansson-lookalike. She exudes unbridled sensuality, yet there is a certain naïveté lying somewhere in her performance – despite all the bluster she is coated with, makes us feel she has yet to know the dangers of the world.
Richard Jenkins is quite a hoot and like it or not, I could not take my eyes off the wig! Michael Rispoli as Mr Depp’s partner in crime is simply perfect. If you cross him with Giovanni Ribisi’s performance (“Shall we have some Adolf?”) you will probably get a prototype of the quintessential Hunter S. Thompson hero.
The Rum Diary has moments which seem pure and unadulterated in their vision: Mr Depp and Mr Rispoli following a Nixon speech on television from the other side of the streets with binoculars, unorthodox driving of a broken-down automobile and the cockerel fighting where we are introduced to El Monstro!
This is a coming-of-age tale, a vanity project for Mr Depp: a rambling one, which the discerning viewer cannot fail to admire.