With Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, and the director of the cult film Withnail & I all involved, how could The Rum Diary be so…conventional?  But, sadly, it is.  This isn’t a boring or badly made film, but there’s nothing special about it.  It’s a generic, “ugly Americans in the tropics” tale, with a wispy plot and thin characterisations.

Let’s begin with Depp’s role, Paul Kemp, a heavy-drinking would-be novelist who gets a job on the “San Juan Star” in 1960 by falsifying his resumé.  But that’s alright, the newspaper itself is mired in a labour dispute, circulation is down, and the other members of the staff are hardly Pulitzer contenders themselves, including photographer Sala, editor Lotterman, and bizarre derelict-reporter Moburg.  Kemp is assigned to write the daily horoscope column as well as puff pieces about the Puerto Rican tourist paradise.  Each time he rebels in print, Lotterman smacks him down.  Except Kemp doesn’t rebel that much, nor does he drink that much, nor does he do that much.  Depp plays Kemp straight, as a bland leading man type, and the result is a colourless, passionless, generally uninterested (and uninteresting) observer of events rather than a fiery or cynical or boozy or dedicated protagonist.  Kemp might say he’s upset by the corruption, racism, and exploitation he sees around him, but he shows hardly any emotion and takes very little action.

Kemp’s bête noire is Sanderson, a wealthy businessman whose syndicate plans to erect a massive tourist complex on a nearby island.  He hires Kemp to write public relations material to impress investors, meanwhile flaunting his fancy cars and fancier girlfriend, Chenault. The final “clash” between Kemp and Sanderson is more like a damp squib, as is Kemp’s wishful and unconsummated romance with Chenault.  This, unfortunately, is indicative of the watered-down nature of the film overall.  It just meanders along, not unpleasantly but with little sense of excitement or true feeling.  The tone is inconsistent: sometimes it’s serious, sometimes wry, sometimes it even goes for wacky (an out-of-place drug hallucination scene, a “funny” car chase).  In Withnail & I, the eccentricity of the characters and the manic-depressive nature of the plot produced a constantly-skating-on-the-edge-of-disaster sensibility that was fascinating and amusing, but The Rum Diary is far too staid, linear, and predictable to approach that level of narrative delirium.  It’s not exciting enough to be a political thriller, it isn’t deep enough to be a drama, it’s not bizarre enough to be a comedy.

This isn’t to suggest there is no value in watching The Rum Diary.  Depp and Michael Rispoli as Sala have decent buddy-film chemistry which provides considerable entertainment as we watch their characters get in and out of trouble.  There is a fairly strong sense of time and place, at least in general terms.  That is, the film happens to be set in Puerto Rico in 1960, but it could just as easily have been Havana in 1957 or some fictional tropical location in roughly the same era.  Sala’s apartment, the newspaper offices, Sanderson’s luxurious house are all spot-on evocations of a bygone period and a vanished world of the haves and have-nots. Amber Heard is beautiful, Aaron Eckhardt is supercilious, and Giovanni Ribisi is grimy and weird.

There is also a strong political sub-text, some of it obvious (Nixon on television) and some of it obscure (Moburg playing recordings of Hitler’s speeches).  The Ugly American is strongly in evidence from first to last.  Even Kemp and Sala display traces of arrogance towards the local population, although the biggest culprits are Sanderson and his cabal, with the newspaper and the tourists not far behind.  It’s not enough for Sanderson to plot to exploit a relatively unspoiled island (unspoiled, that is, except for the fact it’s been used as a U.S. Navy artillery firing range for years!), he must also be shown berating some Puerto Ricans who dare to tread on his private beach.  Kemp interviews two American tourists who extol the virtues of Puerto Rico’s bowling alleys, casinos, and shopping opportunities but admit they don’t leave their hotel to see the rest of the island and its people because “it’s not safe.”  

However, while The Rum Diary castigates America’s superior attitude and economic domination of Puerto Rico, it doesn’t depict the Puerto Ricans in an especially favourable light either.  Perhaps with good reason, virtually every Puerto Rican that Kemp encounters is hostile and even physically dangerous, from the denizens of a roadside café, to the police, to a very angry judge.  Late in the film, there is a strong implication that Chenault is used (possibly abused) sexually by a group of men in a bar after she dances there in a sensual manner (apparently the original novel makes this more explicit).  While The Rum Diary isn’t especially friendly to the Puerto Rican people, their hostility is understandable, even somewhat justified by the way their island has been essentially taken away from them by the Americans.  

Sadly, while this is a major theme of the film, it’s not developed as effectively as it could have been.  Kemp is too passive and while he does gradually develop a conscience and at the film’s end attempts to strike back at Sanderson by exposing his plot, he’s never convincing in the role of crusader.  

The Rum Diary is moderately entertaining in a low-key way.  It’s well-produced, features a decent cast, and contains some worthwhile ideas.  However, it lacks something…a spark of life, that special frisson which distinguishes a routine film from a truly interesting one.  Without that, it’s simply a standard Hollywood movie about a slightly-jaded expatriate in an exotic land who—after some mild adventures—“finds himself.”  And that’s been done before, and better.