Directed by Bruce Robinson. Starring Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli, Amber Heard, Richard Jenkins 15A cert, general release, 120 min
JOHNNY DEPP must look in the mirror every day and thank the Great Spirit for those Cherokee cheekbones. How else could a 48-year-old pass for the same character in a louche and loose prequel to a movie made 13 years ago?
The Rum Diarysees Depp as Paul Kemp, a young pre-Vegas Hunter S Thompson ersatz, who takes a newspaper gig in sunny, dirty 1950s Puerto Rico. Minibar meltdowns quickly ensue. The cub reporter soon loses his heart to a pretty, vacant millionaire's plaything (Amber Heard), loses his mind with fellow soaks and scribes Sala (Michael Rispoli) and Moberg (Giovanni Ribisi), and almost loses his soul to charismatic property developer Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), before finding his voice, a voice that rants and raves at the "bastards" who run the world. Think Gonzo: Genesis of a Superhero.
Johnny Depp hearts Hunter S Thompson and you can feel the love. Ever since his 1999 stint on Terry Gilliam's underappreciated Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,Depp has periodically channelled his late gun-totting literary hero, both in life and onscreen. Let's hear it for magpie mimicry: it's no mean feat that the same performer can simultaneously ape Gonzo, the Bewley Brothers and Keith Richards.
Hunter and Johnny were thick as thieves prior to Thompson's suicide in 2005. It was Depp who saw to it that the old man's last wish was honoured and paid for Thompson's ashes to be shot from 47-metre canon into the stratosphere. And it was Depp who found and optioned The Rum Diary, a discarded unpublished manuscript dating back to the 1960s.
A wacky, vaguely fictionalised account of Thompson's youthful stint at a newspaper in San Juan, The Rum Diaryhas been available at all good bookstores for more than a decade, just long enough for Depp to get his long-cherished, hard-sell pet project off the ground.
Depp's ongoing bromance with Thompson goes three ways with the involvement of Withnail and I'sBruce Robinson, whom the actor hired in to write and direct. Robinson may not have made a film since Jennifer Eight(1992), but nobody can boast a better track record with drunk gags.
The Rum Diary'stone, unsurprisingly, is unhinged to perfection, and the performances – save Heard's thankless and accordingly lifeless turn – are suitably screwy.
Still, there’s something underpowered and overly reverential about this movie. It’s pretty and funny and amusingly digressive when it ought to roar “Bastard” and chase us all home with a shotgun.
