Johnny Depp is an alcoholic journalist who aspires to be a writer. He ends up drunk in Puerto Rico, working (sort of) in the local newspaper, getting in the midst of American capital invasion of the locals, and seduced by the fiancee of the most powerful American big business liaison. Among other things: In the meantime, he is arrested for blowing fire in the face of the policeman, he experiments with numerous alcoholic preparations, befriends a bunch of memorable loser journalists, and manages to escape with a conscience.
The beloved film of the year, this is, and if it isn't exactly at the level of Withnail & I, it is because Depp seems to have stuck in his Fear & Loathing in las Vegas face (both derived from Hunter Thompson's literary heritage).
But this is the film that has Bruce Robinson written all over it. An Award winning screenwriter in the early 1980s for the Killing Fields, a veteran of the industry (he was Benvoglio in Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet in 1968 and he can tell many stories about these times..., and he was the lieutenat the young Isabelle Adjani falls for in Adele H), he entered directing with Withnail, a film that stuck with the ones who saw it forever. His second fable, How to get Ahead in Advertising did no good neither for him nor for his protagonist Richard Grant; his third Jennifer 8, is a brilliant thriller with a strange romance between Andy Garcia and Uma Thurman, back in 1992. And then he vanished, apart from the rare screenplays.
What is important for Robinson is his eloquence. I remember vaguely an article, don't remember by whom and where (was it the Word? was it the late Neon?), about his brilliance: the author said that if you commapre the much celebrated musings of Tarantino with a screenplay by Robinson, it was like comparing a napking to poetry, or something. An Robinson is a poet- there are too many classic moments here to mention, and this is one of the things that, upon seeing Rum Diary, makes you want to see it again, IMMEDIATELY.
Another important thing is the rest of the cast. And it is not just Aaron Ekhart and Richard Jenkins, you expect them to be brilliant in threatening/ hilarious (respectively) presence. But it is Michael Rispoli who delivers a direct from Hemingway's writings character, as Sala the photographer, recalling (at least in part) a young Peter Ustinov, and it is Giovanni Ribisi in a tragically hilarious turn as the neonazi drunkard/ drug-experimentalist journalist, and it is Amber Heard who captures the screen and Depp's fantasy at the most seducing way seen lately. A femme-fatale for the 2010s? (certainly not in the league of Kathleen Turner of the early 1980s, but definitely oozing sexuality- fulfilling the initial promise of her presence in Drive Angry). Look how she teases Depp in the following clip...
...and the sexuality we were referring to, along with some representative bits of the brilliant soundtrack.
A film to be loved and repetedly seen.
"Human beings are the only creatures on earth that claim a god and the only living thing that behaves like it hasn't got one"...
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