Film review: The Rum Diary

Before the weird turned pro, they lived in Puerto Rico quaffing rum and working on a first novel.

But audiences looking for a tropical version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas will be disappointed, at least slightly, with The Rum Diary, based on the eponymous book by Hunter S. Thompson, as it is a slower ride in a more mainstream current than the amphetamine and lysergic acid-fueled mania of previous Thompson adventures. But this film has a roguish charm all its own, thanks more to the cinematography than the source material: Thompson's first novel, written under a heavy dose of Hemingway and shelved for more than three decades until its publication in the last years of the writer's life.

Fledgling reporter Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) has just arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, seeking employment at the San Juan Star, an English-language newspaper that is rotting in a sea of rum and bribery, as he finds out on his first day on the job, when the only interview question the editor-in-chief, Lotterman, asks is "How much do you drink?"

The acting here is excellent, as Depp handles the role with aplomb, at times giving hints of the later Dr. Gonzo but generally maintaining a more innocent demeanor. Lotterman, meanwhile, is a cross between J. Jonah Jameson and Herbert Carter.

Also working at the Star is Sala (Michael Rispoli), the staff photographer who says he's awaiting the paper's imminent demise so he can collect his dues and head to Mexico, but who, one gets the feeling, will never leave Puerto Rico. He, along with Moburg, the Star's "religious correspondent" (played hilariously by a Bukowski-esque Giovanni Ribisi), will become Paul's sidekick in a bender of adventurous proportions.

This being Thompson territory, the film contains a fair amount of overindulgence, rambunctious, hung-over mayhem and even the obligatory hallucination scene, albeit one much cooler and more low-key than anything from Las Vegas. But all of this unfolds in a beautiful palette, with Puerto Rico's deep-green waves, white-linen suits, sailboats and cockfights portrayed with an appealing golden-age glamour that is largely thanks to Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), an American Adonis making scandalous amounts of money on crooked land deals.

Despite Lotterman's insistence that Paul maintain the status quo, the upstart reporter doesn't plan on settling for fluff pieces. Sanderson will end up the primary target of Paul's investigative journalism, but not before he is enchanted by his glamorous life of fast cars and beach parties. It is Sanderson's seductive girlfriend, Chenault, who will be most alluring for Paul; a femme fatale with a wandering eye you know is looking for trouble.

The film's dialogue is taut, as evidenced by one-off lines such as anAmerican developer's comment that "a liberal is a commie with a college education thinking negro thoughts."

Despite all the romantic exploits, The Rum Diary manages a few political statements, sometimes overtly, as when Paul and Sala watch the Kennedy-Nixon debates and Paul takes a few expletive-laden stabs at Nixon before predicting, "The Irish guy's gonna' win, but they're not going to let him live."

Some of the film's (and the novel's) politics are confined to the island. The U.S. government is pulling out of a stretch of land - of which there is very little in Puerto Rico - and Sanderson and his cronies, operating on a secret tip, are planning to buy the land and develop it into a tourist paradise. Paul is opposed to this and begins collecting information for a story that will blow the lid off the operation, if it isn't canned by Lotterman first.  

At the center of this whirlwind is Paul's struggle as an aspiring novelist who can reel off lines of Coleridge but can't find his own literary voice. But this subplot is subverted to the collective adventures of this motley crew of Americans in Cuba, who have a wicked sense of entitlement and plenty of money to burn.

There is never much doubt that Paul will choose honest poverty over the temptations of greed, but as he does this, we don't feel that he's acting on any pronounced sense of virtue. Instead, his tendency to "blow it," as Sanderson says, seems to have more to do with his haphazard behavior than anything else.

The last 20 minutes of the film feel rushed, as too many disparate strands of the story are tied together too tightly, but the weakest aspect of the film - the hesitant attraction between Paul and Chenault - isn't pushed too far. The Rum Diary is, finally, not a great story, but a good one entertainingly told. It might not make you swoon, but it will make you thirsty.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com