The Rum Diary

Year: 2011 (USA)
Genre: Comedy/Satire
Directed: Bruce Robinson
Stars: Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli, Amber Heard, Richard Jenkins, Giovanni Ribisi, Amaury Nolasco, Marshall Bell
Production: GK Films

The film begins with main character Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) waking up in a luxurious hotel room in Puerto Rico after a heavy night of drinking. After chomping down a few aspirin, Kemp stumbles into the editors office of the San Juan Star and is given a dead end writing job. After a few chance encounters, Kemp becomes the center of intrigue and corruption while consuming copious amounts of alcohol.

The Rum Diary (2011) was originally a novella from the twisted mind of Hunter S. Thompson an eccentric journalist and novelist who in addition to smoking, snorting, injecting, drinking every drug, alcohol and carcinogen known to man, managed to change the face of journalism by calling it as he sees it. His writing can repel and enchant with equal measure and has a breakneck spontaneity which is rivaled by its frazzled incoherency.

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone,
But they've always worked for me." - Hunter S. Thompson

Incoherency would be the best word to describe this film. The story lacks any kind of focus jumping from a love story, a corrupt land deal, drunken antics, workplace politics and racial tensions. Watching The Rum Diary was liking talking to a drunk grad student; little flashes of genius may linger but after what seems like four hours you realize you're talking to a drunken idiot and looking for the door.

This is part of my dissertation on buoyancy...

Thompson's other work adapted to screen shares a similar inconsistency but say what you will about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) at least it was interesting. Director Bruce Robinson seems unsure behind the camera trying desperately to balance themes and while Terry Gilliam threw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, Robinson compensates by drawing out its screen time and keeping the camera-work and editing as dull and uninspiring as possible.

The films only saving grace is the inclusion of Giovanni Ribisi as a cirrhosis addled, syphilitic cohort who takes LSD while listening to records of Nazi propaganda. His arguments with the Star's head editor (Richard Jenkins) provide some of the few precious moments of humor.

The epilogue appears while Johnny Depp sails into the horizon explaining that while its the end of the story "...its the beginning of another." I would have liked to have seen the other story. At least by then the sardonic wit of Thompson was finally present.

Final Grade: F