By Samir Mathur
Contributing writer
Staff page | Twitter | TumblrTHE RUM DIARY (Rated R) opens nationwide today. Click here for Orlando showtimes.
It’s a common trope of superhero movies to tell the so-called origin story. We’re pretty familiar with the storylines; how a particular hero got his (or her, but almost always his) powers, what misadventures and hardships they befell before becoming the character that everyone identifies, etc. In many ways, Bruce Robinson’s ‘The Rum Diary’ is an origin story for nerds like me, who look at Hunter S. Thompson as a sort of literary superhero. Though it’s adapted from one of Thompson’s novels, it’s made fairly transparent that the main character, a journalist played by Johnny Depp, is a surrogate for the author himself. Though the film is enjoyable if ultimately a little underwhelming, it does end up painting a clearer picture of the journalist Thompson would become, a no-nonsense rabble-rouser who stood on the side of the little guy against big business, big greed, and what he would call, big bastards.
It’s hard not to compare ‘The Rum Diary’ with Terry Gilliam’s bonkers ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, also starring Depp, and based on Thompson’s most famous work. This film, like the tale it’s spun from, is very different. For one thing, there’s only one scene of drug-induced paranoia. (Although that scene is very funny. And later on there is also a hermaphrodite witch doctor). ‘The Rum Diary’ is comparatively grounded, telling the story of a man sent to Puerto Rico in 1960 to work for a local paper, who discovers that things on the island paradise may not be as idyllic as they seem. Like a Graham Greene protagonist, he notices the ever-widening disparity between the natives and the handful of white Americans, who are using the island to make themselves rich. And it makes him sick.
One of them is played by Aaron Eckhart, who plays slimy very well, but doesn’t have a whole lot to do here. Amber Heard, too, is underused as the love interest, in a story line that doesn’t really go anywhere. The newspaper trio of Michael Rispoli, Richard Jenkins and Giovanni Ribisi is a lot more fun to watch. Depp himself is fine, doing that thing where he looks bemused by everything going on around him, whilst also being somewhat off himself.
The film was actually completed a few years ago, and tales of its production are already fascinating. Most importantly, it drove the long-sober Robinson back to drinking. (Speaking of drinking, if you haven’t seen Robinson’s first film, ‘Withnail and I’, you need to close this window and fire up Netflix Watch Instantly AT ONCE.) But for all that tumult, there’s a lack of danger and passion at the heart of ‘The Rum Diary’ which caused me to lose interest by the time the plot fizzles out in the final act. There’s a good amount of laughs, and a decent amount of adventure on the way; it’s just a shame that there’s not much of a destination. Fans of The Doctor will enjoy this, if only to see what sparked a career, but casual moviegoers may lose interest before the end. 'The Rum Diary' is patchy; crazy in parts, inspired in parts and tedious in parts, just like the Great Man himself.
