4 out of 5 Pitchforks
Starring: Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard
Released: Oct. 28
Rating: R
It was a good weekend for both Johnny Depp enthusiasts and Hunter S. Thompson admirers. “The Rum Diary” has arrived and serves as a genuinely entertaining film and a promise fulfilled.
It’s no secret Depp and Thompson, author of “The Rum Diary,” were dear friends, nor was this the first collaboration between the two. Depp had made a commitment to actualize the writer’s long lost work in absence of his fellow Kentucky blooded confidant.
After Thompson’s passing in 2005, Depp saw to it that his ashes be blasted from the top of a 150-foot double-thumbed fist tower at the king of Gonzo journalism’s request and design, during a private gathering of friends and family celebrating the writer’s life.
It was also Johnny Depp who discovered the then-unpublished pages of “The Rum Diary” in an old box while living in Thompson’s basement during pre-production for “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” another film adapted from a book penned by Thompson. The two agreed that Thompson would publish the novel and they would produce it as a movie. It remains Thompson’s only published fiction novel.
The film is set in the 50’s and finds Depp playing Thompson’s alter ego, Paul Kemp, a struggling American writer who recently left New York City for the sunnier San Juan Puerto Rico. He has taken up work as a journalist for a fading newspaper and is searching for his literary voice among the beaches, booze and bizarre cast of characters encountered during his stay.
Kemp makes quick friends with the newspaper’s photographer, Bob Sala (played by Michael Rispoli) which leads the way through inebriated exploits including cockfights, run-ins with island police and hostile islanders all under the guidance of rum.
Complaints of the film lacking a sturdy plot would be justified. The film is a zany ride, much like the book, and doesn’t really find grounding as far as a conventional story. However, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do in showing the foundation of experiences that molded Thompson into the brilliant writer he would come to be.
The closest thing to a plot would be Kemp’s relationship with the ambitious evil corporate schemer of Hal Sanderson, who is fantastically played by Aaron Eckhart. Sanderson is looking to employ the writing talents of Kemp to assist him in his greedy plans to develop and build hotels on a neighboring island. Kemp plays the role long enough to get closer to Sanderson’s girlfriend, Chenault, played by the stunning Amber Heard.
It’s Giovanni Ribisi, however, who steals every scene he graces as Moberg, an island misfit whose brain and body have been devastated by a healthy diet of rum and drugs.
Those expecting the same kind of heady trip as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” won’t find it in “The Rum Diary.”
This is Depp as a much more subdued incarnation of Thompson, but it is still an absolutely worthwhile flick.
Reach the reporter at tebrook1@asu.edu
Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
