On Missing the Target in The Rum Diary

Johnny Depp plays a journalist named Kemp whilst channelling his friend and novelist, the late Hunter S Thompson. The Rum Diary (based on Thompson’s novel) follows Kemp to Puerto Rico and to a failing newspaper. The idea of a newspaper in decline is the first point of real interest that the film deals with on a surface level only in favour of poorly directed jokes about the effects and after effects of drink and drugs. The second point, ignored for the purpose of more bad jokes, is that of the American Dream. In one brief scene Depp’s character and his editor discuss how Puerto Rico, as part of America, is where people come to achieve the elusive and essentially mythic, American Dream. At the same time as rich Americans come in to build the dream, poor Puerto Ricans live in squalor. These two ideas could have been combined with the story of a journalist drawn in by the magic of the dream, only to realise his errors and attempt to uncover the myth and at its core this is what The Rum Diary wants to be. Yet, for some reason, whether in editing or even earlier in pre production, the idea was taken to turn this into a booze and drug fest with the same unamusing joke replayed over and over without any real attempt to adapt it. The Hangover (2009) did this far more successfully and without the pretence of achieving something grander.