Review: The Rum Diary (Bruce Robinson, 2011)

By Tom Stoup

It’s easy to poke fun at top-of-the-world A-lister Johnny Depp for constantly taking roles involving silly hats and/or wigs and excessive makeup. He’s kind of been proving lately, however, that he requires as much to be worth the while. Even then, while his recent several years of films have certainly made money and even shattered box office records, only so very few have been of true merit. Dare I say the last great role he took on (outside reprises – two worthy, one sour – of Captain Jack Sparrow) was that of the Earl of Rochester in 2004’s “The Libertine”, incidentally a part he’d been attached to via John Malkovich for nigh a decade. So when hatless star power is really the sole draw to a picture, and the picture – though inspired by the seemingly infallible and Depp-impassioning Dr. Hunter S. Thompson – appears reliant on that star power alone, what’s left when the project is dead on arrival?

It’s not that Depp turns in a poor mark for his résumé as Thompson-circa-1960 proxy Paul Kemp, or that he doesn’t appear to be trying, for that matter. It’s more that writer/director Bruce Robinson’s adaptation is so vanilla there’s hardly any flavor for the actor to work with. There are no pitted cherries, or crushed almonds, or gummi bears! It’s not even remotely neapolitan! All that’s left for Depp to chew on are some reactionary expressions of sprightly bewilderment and a sexily assured money shot or two. As for the others, Michael Rispoli puts forth another fine supporting show and Giovanni Ribisi adds a further shade to his color wheel while the remainder of the cast, including the reliable Richard Jenkins, do little more than earn their paychecks.

But why does this movie exist? Is it “Fear & Loathing” for wimps? For the most part I think it’s trying to be shocking – and some “Loathing”-isms feel so obligatorily wedged in they can’t be intended as anything more – but who will it actually shock? Nuns? The San Juan cultures of heavy drinking, odd hallucinogenics, voodoo and cockfighting are tiredly strung out through breathless exposition, wringing them of any potential intrigue. Of course it doesn’t help that simply knowing the proceedings are based upon a Thompson work causes one to go in expecting the would-be wild subject matter. It’s a pity, since the more overt message concerns the importance of being more than fluffy filler simply designed to entertain a boring audience, yet fluffy filler is precisely what “The Rum Diary” is. And as a relevant side request, Hollywood, can we please quit using the screenwriting device of a seemingly random addition in act one “surprisingly” resurfacing to save the day in the end? Do I need to quote Robert Downey Jr.’s cook bit from “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” again?

Perhaps the most interesting point comes when an inebriated U.S. Armed Forces major at an entrepreneurial  playboy’s expensive party rattles on about the evils of Communism, his belief that “60% of negroes are controlled out of Moscow” and how he feels Cuba “needs to be bombed off the face of the planet to allow its people to live in peace.” It becomes clear to me here that Kemp’s battle between sobriety and intoxication is very much like the one between Communism and Capitalism. The tagline mentality “absolutely nothing in moderation” shows that at one extreme or another, one is apt to go off the deep end, if you will, and that moderation is quite possibly the answer. Lenin understood this. Kennedy understood this. Kemp… is learning it.

Though his voice feels widely absent, at the core of the film’s spirit is Thompson’s unique sense of journalistic integrity. To him – and this is coming from a Thompson novice, mind you – journalism means explicitly experiencing all corners of this life and bringing them to the masses free of pretense. One of the best examples I can think of fulfilling this ideal is “The People Can” by Chuck Palahniuk, for which the author descended for weeks – maybe months, maybe half a year for all I recall – beneath the waves with the crew of a submarine. It’s a hell of an article. That’s what it – yes, that “it” – is all about, yet “Diary” fails to share the experience, merely going through the motions until a dissatisfactory finale.

Like watching Clark Gregg’s “Choke” with David Fincher’s “Fight Club” in the back of your mind (y’know, speaking of Palahniuk and all), “The Rum Diary” is more a dull homage to Terry Gilliam’s “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas” that happens to also star Johnny Depp. It tidily makes its points and lingers like a bad hangover. At one juncture, in reference to the innocuous pieces he’s forced to print in his doomed paper, Jenkins’ editor-in-chief advises, “There’s a thin veneer between the dream and the reality. You wake the people up, and they’re not gonna be happy.” I want to be woken up.