The Rum Diary
Ok... so... I actually saw this one about a week ago. And while I was busy (yes, I know... taking to a blog to complain that while you were too busy to write about the now 47 movies you've seen this year, you did have plenty of time to see them... free of charge. Yes, I believe I will fuck off now, thanks.) I suppose the real reason I haven't gotten around to writing about the movie is that there just wasn't a lot of impetus to do so. Why bother? The Rum Diary is essentially the height of mediocrity. I didn't like it enough to run out here and tell you why it rocked, and it didn't suck enough to get me so riled up I couldn't help but rip it a new asshole. It just sort of was...it happened. And then it was over. Roll credits, get up, leave, and hardly devote a second thought to it the rest of your life. And so it goes. But, for my loyal reader out there, I can't miss a beat. So here I find myself... trying to pound out words to describe the movie- or not- when really a bored sigh would do.
So here you go: *sigh*.
Grade:...
Ok, so, to be fair, a few words. It wasa disappointment. It starred Johnny Depp! As Hunter S. Thompson's doppelganger, "Kemp" (the movie is based on the thinly veiled, semi-autobiographical account of how one journalist's experience in a "wild west..ish" Puerto Rico newspaper grows him from a naive upstart to a fledgling breaker of bastards' balls)! See, I don't honestly know if I'm in the minority, but while I found it- at times- nearly incomprehensible, I actually enjoyed the madcap fun of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It had enough quirky fun to make for a good movie. Depp- of course- delivered a heck of a performance as Thompson doppelganger, Raoul Duke in that flick. Here, he gives us more of the same: staccato, clipped speech, interesting verbal imagery, and an against-the-odds coolness that seems to seep from the character. Only here, he does it all more or less so in the worst way. More staccato-ish speech pattern, less imagery, and a more contrived cool. It's a retread performance. And it might have worked if not for the lack of a quality story. At least there wasn't very much batshit craziness going on. Picking up the antics of Fear and Loathing and dropping them in the more placid environment of 1960 Puerto Rico just would have seemed sad and out of place.
I don't know, it wasn't as though Depp was phoning it in here. It was more that maybe he was trying too hard. And, maybe he really did almost pull it off. I guess as far as passion projects go, not bad.
In the end though, the fatal flaw is that nothing of consequence happens in the movie. Nothing. Hell, nothing inconsequential seems to happen either. Yeah... it's more that nothing seems to happen. Kemp hits Puerto Rico, he sees some stuff he doesn't like, drinks some rum, has some fun, a few things go bad, and he shoves off back to the States to bring the all the bastards down. As it plays out, it all would seem to amount to a bad vacation rather than a life changing event. And this wheel spinning inertia absolutely sinks the film. Nothing manages to get it out of its rut. Not Depp's game/gamey effort. Not Amber Heard's sizzling performance. Not even the few, passing moments of genuine amusement. Nothing budges the movie away from solid mediocrity. Things happen, characters move about the screen, you chuckle, you sigh, and eventually you just go home. Damn it.
Grade: C
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