The Rum Diary
DIRECTED BY BRUCE ROBINSON
Johnny Depp works a familiar, booze-addled angle in Bruce Robinson’s The Rum Diary, a mildly amusing but muddled yarn that evaporates from the memory as rapidly as a high-proof spirit. The film is based on an early semi-autobiographical novel by Hunter S. Thompson, and casts Depp in what is essentially a muted reprise of his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas role as stand-in for the iconic gonzo journalist. The Rum Diary is also a muted reprise of sorts for Robinson, in that it sees the writer-director return to comedic material for the first time in 22 years, though the results lack the bite of his cult ’80s efforts.
If that’s a slight disappointment, the film itself is far from an outright bust, and features a formidable cast, a seductive Mad Men-era setting, and several laugh-out-loud gags, often courtesy of the show-stealingly slimy Giovanni Ribisi. A filthy crime reporter with the pallor of a shambling corpse, Ribisi is the depraved drug fiend you expect from a Thompson adaptation, though here he’s a peripheral character rather than the story’s protagonist. That honour, naturally, falls to Depp, as glib C-list hack Paul Kemp, who decamps to Puerto Rico hoping to join the team at English language daily San Juan Star.
As it happens, he’s the only applicant, and lands the gig despite being literally soused to the eyeballs. He subsequently finds a mentor and drinking partner in Sala (Michael Ripsoli), the Star‘s jaded staff photographer. The notional villain of the piece is Aaron Eckhart’s Hal Sanderson, a moneyed real estate playboy with a stunningly attractive girlfriend (Amber Heard) and designs on a bumper beachfront development deal. Sanderson wants Kemp to put a positive spin on his shady property transactions, and Kemp desperately covets the girl, but neither thread proves particularly intoxicating.
Of course, as the surrogate for a young Thompson, Kemp’s adventure wouldn’t be complete without the discovery of a dual passion for hallucinogens and political muckraking, and Robinson does account for both, but only in an awkward extended denouement. In another context, a conclusion so aimless as to require explanatory title cards would be a serious failing, but here it suffices as hasty cleanup after a bit of harmless fun.