THE RUM DIARY written and directed by Bruce Robinson, based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson, with Johnny Depp, Michael Rispoli, Aaron Eckhart and Amber Heard. An eOne Films release. 119 minutes. Opens Friday (October 28). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNN
Hunter S. Thompson’s early novel about a rookie journalist plunged into political corruption and general debauchery in 1960 Puerto Rico comes to the screen with its semi-autobiographical nature front and centre.
Producer/star Johnny Depp may be playing a character named Paul Kemp, but he’s channelling Thompson himself, reviving the clipped delivery he used for the writer’s Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas avatar, Raoul Duke, and slouching around with a perpetual hangover. Things get serious when Kemp falls for an alluring young woman (Amber Heard) who happens to be the girlfriend of a local swell (Aaron Eckhart) bent on enlisting Kemp in a shady land deal.
Venturing behind the camera for the first time in 19 years, director Bruce Robinson (Withnail & I) tones down Thompson’s bad craziness for a more realistic mood. The result is a strange push-pull between Depp’s farcical inclinations and Robinson’s world-weariness, and while it doesn’t totally gel, Eckhart and Heard do some really interesting work on the margins.
