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The Rum Diary (film)

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The Rum Diary
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBruce Robinson
Screenplay byBruce Robinson
Based onThe Rum Diary
by Hunter S. Thompson
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyDariusz Wolski
Edited byCarol Littleton
Music byChristopher Young
Production
companies
Distributed byFilmDistrict (US)[1]
Release dates
  • October 13, 2011 (2011-10-13) (Los Angeles)
  • October 28, 2011 (2011-10-28) (United States)
Running time
120 minutes[2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$45 million[3][4]
Box office$30.1 million[3]

The Rum Diary is a 2011 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Bruce Robinson, based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Hunter S. Thompson. It stars Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli, Amber Heard, Richard Jenkins, and Giovanni Ribisi.

Filming began in Puerto Rico in March 2009 and was released on October 28, 2011.[5] The film received mixed reviews and grossed just $30 million against its $45 million budget.

Plot

Paul Kemp is an author who has not been able to sell a book. He gets a job at a newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There, he meets Sala, who gets him acclimatized and tells him he thinks the newspaper will fold soon. Kemp checks into a hotel, and while idling about on a boat in the sea, meets Chenault, who is skinny-dipping while avoiding a Union Carbide party. Kemp is immediately smitten with her.

Kemp and Sala immediately go on a drinking binge, which earns Kemp the enmity of his editor, Lotterman. Kemp also meets Moburg, a deadbeat reporter who cannot be fired. While waiting for an interview, Kemp meets Sanderson, a freelance realtor, who offers him a job writing advertisements for his latest venture. Sanderson is engaged to Chenault, who pretends not to know Kemp.

Later, Kemp moves in with Sala, who also rooms with Moburg. Kemp begins to see the poverty of San Juan, but Lotterman does not want him to write about it, as it would be bad for tourism. Moburg returns with leftover filters from a rum plant; they contain high-proof alcohol. Moburg has been fired, and rants about killing Lotterman.

Kemp visits Sanderson and spies on him having sex with Chenault. He meets Zimburger and Segarra, who want him to help with a real-estate scam. Later, Sala and Kemp go to a restaurant and berate the owner for refusing them service; Kemp senses that the owner wants to kill them, so Sala and he beat a hasty retreat, pursued by angry locals. The police arrive and break up the fight, then throw Sala and Kemp in jail. Sanderson bails them out.

The next day, Kemp meets with Sanderson's crew, who tell him that the US military is relinquishing the lease on some prime real estate, and is asked to pick up Chenault from her house. Kemp and Chenault share a moment, but resist temptation.

Zimburger takes Kemp and Sala to see the island property, then they head to St. Thomas for Carnival. Kemp finds Chenault, and they wind up on Sanderson's boat. Sanderson berates Kemp for involving Sala in the deal. At night, they go to a club, and a drunk Chenault dances with local men to provoke Sanderson, with whom she has been fighting. The owners of the bar beat up Sanderson and throw Kemp out of the club. Chenault is left behind at the bar, but where she ends up is unknown.

The next day, Chenault is gone, and Sanderson tells Kemp that their business arrangement is over. When Sala and Kemp return home, Moburg tells them that Lotterman has left and that the paper will go out of business. He also sells them hallucinogens, which they take. Kemp has an epiphany while under the influence, and resolves to write an exposé on Sanderson's shady deals.

Lotterman returns, but will not publish Kemp's story. Chenault shows up at Kemp's place, after Sanderson disowns her. Out of spite, Sanderson withdraws his bail, meaning that Kemp and Sala are now wanted by the police. Moburg also tells them that Lotterman has closed the paper. Kemp decides to print a last issue, telling the truth about Lotterman and Sanderson, as well as the stories Lotterman declined.

To make money to print the last edition, Kemp, Sala, and Moburg place a big cockfighting bet. They visit Papa Nebo, Moburg's intersex witch doctor, to lay a blessing on Sala's prize cockerel. They win, but return to the office to find that the printing presses have been confiscated.

Kemp continues his quest, leaving Puerto Rico on a sailboat. The end credits explain that Kemp makes it back to New York, marries Chenault, and becomes a successful journalist, having finally found his voice as a writer.

Cast

Production

Johnny Depp in November 2011, at a premiere of the film in Paris

Hunter S. Thompson wrote the novel The Rum Diary in 1961, but it was not published until 1998.[6] The independent production companies Shooting Gallery and SPi Films sought to adapt the novel into a film in 2000, and Johnny Depp was signed to star and to serve as executive producer. Nick Nolte was also signed to star alongside Depp.[7] The project did not move past the development stage.[6] During this stage, the author became so frustrated as to fire off an obscenity-laden letter calling the process a "waterhead fuckaround".[8]

In 2002, a new producer sought the project, and Benicio del Toro and Josh Hartnett were signed to star in the film adaptation.[7] The second incarnation also did not move past the development stage.[6] In 2007, producer Graham King acquired all rights to the novel and sought to film the adaptation under Warner Independent Pictures.[7] Depp, who previously starred in the 1998 film adaptation of Thompson's novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, was cast as the freelance journalist Paul Kemp.[6] Amber Heard is reported to have been preferred over Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley. Bruce Robinson joined to write the screenplay and to direct The Rum Diary.[7] In 2009, Depp's production company Infinitum Nihil took on the project with the financial backing of King and his production company GK Films. Principal photography began in Puerto Rico on March 25, 2009.[9] Composer Christopher Young signed on to compose the film's soundtrack.[10]

Robinson had been sober for six-and-a-half years before he started writing the screenplay for The Rum Diary.[11] The filmmaker found himself suffering from writer's block. He started drinking a bottle of wine a day until he finished the script and then he quit drinking again. He spent a year filming in Puerto Rico, Mexico and Hollywood and resisted drinking until the crew arrived in Fajardo. Robinson remembers, "It was 100 degrees at two in the morning and very humid. Everyone's drenched in sweat. One of the prop guys goes by with a barrow-load of ice and Coronas. I said: 'Johnny, this doesn't mean anything.' And reached for a Corona... Some savage drinking took place. When I was no longer in Johnny's environment I went back to sobriety."[11]

In regard to playing the character of Kemp, Depp compared and related it to his previous role in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He said “The way I approached it was that the character of Paul Kemp is Raoul Duke as he was learning to speak. It was like playing the same character, only 15 years before. This guy’s got something; there’s an energy burning underneath it, it’s just ready to pop up, shoot out.”

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 51% based on 166 reviews, with a rating average of 5.62/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "It's colorful and amiable enough, and Depp's heart is clearly in the right place, but The Rum Diary fails to add sufficient focus to its rambling source material."[12] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews, gives the film a score of 56 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a "C" on an A+ to F scale.[14]

Wyatt Williams, writing for Creative Loafing, argues that "the movie version amounts to Thompson's whole vision of journalism, glossed and made plain by Hollywood."[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ Fleming, Mike (March 29, 2011). "Johnny Depp's Second Hunter Thompson Pic, 'Rum Diary,' Lands At FilmDistrict". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 2012-02-24.
  2. ^ "The Rum Diary (15)". Bruce Robinson. British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 2011-10-13.
  3. ^ a b "The Rum Diary (2011)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved November 1, 2011.
  4. ^ Kaufman, Amy (October 27, 2011). "Movie Projector: 'Puss in Boots' to stomp on competition". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 27, 2011.
  5. ^ "GK Films and Infinitum Nihil's The Rum Diary Lands at Filmdistrict". Retrieved March 23, 2011.
  6. ^ a b c d Tilly, Chris (December 2007). "Depp opens 'Rum Diary'". Time Out. Retrieved April 2, 2009.
  7. ^ a b c d Goldstein, Gregg (July 30, 2007). "Depp toasts Hunter S. Thompson with 'Rum Diary'". Reuters.
  8. ^ "Okay, you lazy bitch". Letters of Note. 2009-09-17. Archived from the original on 2012-02-24. Retrieved 2012-02-24.
  9. ^ "The Rum Diary Now Filming". IGN. April 2, 2009. Retrieved April 2, 2009.
  10. ^ "Christopher Young to score The Rum Diary". MovieScore Magazine. October 9, 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-11.
  11. ^ a b Chalmers, Robert (February 20, 2011). "Bruce Robinson: "I started drinking again because of The Rum Diary"". The Independent. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
  12. ^ "The Rum Diary (2011)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
  13. ^ "The Rum Diary Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
  14. ^ Finke, Nikki (October 30, 2011). "Snow Ices Box Office: 'Puss In Boots' #1, 'Paranormal' #2, 'In Time' #3, 'Rum Diary' #4". Deadline Hollywood. PMC. Retrieved October 30, 2011.
  15. ^ "A rum diary: Fear and self-loathing in the multiplex". Creative Loafing. Retrieved October 30, 2011.
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