The Rum Diary (Blu-ray)

Gripping, funny, thrilling an excellent film made great by another brilliant performace by Johnny Depp, a must watch.

The Rum Diary is a comedy drama starring Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, Michael Rispoli and Giovanni Ribisi.

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas has become a cult classic and many people were egerly anticipating Johnny Depp's return to Hunter S Thompson teritory. Sadly The Rum Diary fails to live up to those expectations.

Depp himself is the main problem with a bland and boring performance in the leading role. Eckhart has nothing to work with and Heard is clearly only there for her beauty. Rispoli is fun but you cannot help wish Benicio Del Toro had taken his role. Only Ribisi manages to produce an interesting character.

This is the first movie Bruce Robinson (Withnail And I) has directed in nearly 20 years and unfortunately it shows. The Rum Diary is a mess with comedy moments which fail to be funny and a plot which leaves the viewer confused.

The Rum Diary should have been a whole lot better but fails to be anything other than boring mainly due to Depp phoning in his performance and a director clearly suffering from being away too long.

2 stars as the earlier reviewer gave it sums this up really well. The trailer had looked good. Johnny Depp does chose some nothing roles. I haven't seen him in much better than Donny Brasco. This Rum Diary is an interesting period. Early 60's. Aaron Ekhart is wasted in his role. Amber Heard is stunning and has a good chemistry with Depp, even though she is much younger. The newspaper editor is good fun. Sadly the story goes nowhere and our cast who are drunk through most of the movie just go from one disaster to another. With a bit more substance to the story, this could have been great. So many of Depp's movies seem odd choices and while he is a very good actor you just wish someone could chose his roles for him. He just seems to avoid mainstream, historic or popular roles, instead going for quirky, odd and whimsical characters easily forgotten when the 2 hours are up.