The Rum Diary

The Rum Diary

Directed by: Bruce Robinson

Written by: Bruce Robinson

Plot:

American journalist Paul Kemp takes on a freelance job in Puerto Rico for a local newspaper during the 1950s and struggles to find a balance between island culture and the expatriates who live there.

Review:

The Rum Diary might be one of the most unsatisfying movies of the year. First off the trailer was very misleading since I thought the film was going to a psychological journey through the mind of this writer. Instead we got a lot of filler scenes. I felt like I was waiting for something to happen the entire movie and then it ended. 

The beginning of the story all felt forced with each line of dialogue being way to obvious about setting up what was going on. With ridiculously cheesy moments between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard that goes along with their unexplainable love connection I felt like I was being cheated of a real story. 

This film is based off a novel, which I have not read, but I don’t see how they thought the book could be adapted. There was too much irrelevant scenes and dialogue that took place to make me care about the main character or even get invested into the story.

Johnny Depp is always the man with a believable performance as a drunk but his supporting cast really hurt his performance. Michael Rispoli played one of his roommates and he just got on my nerves and played no part in driving the story. Someone that bothered me even more was Giovanni Ribisi who played a way to over the top alcoholic. Every word that came out of his mouth pissed me off and he contributed even less to the story.

The two people I wish were int he film more often are Amber Heard and Aaron Eckhart. They both gave great performances. It felt like the movie was going to revolve around the two of them and Depp but then abruptly they were both out of the picture. The abruptness of their departures from the film did not make sense or fit into the story.

The main purpose of this film was to show Depp’s character find his voice as a journalist during his experience in Puerto Rico but I think the filmed did a terrible job at portraying this. At no moment did I feel that he was lost as a writer besides the one line of dialogue which he said he was lost and there was no moment where I felt he gained his voice. Sorry Johnny better luck next time.

Rating: 4/10

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