There comes a time in every man’s life when he’s hit the end of the road. There’s only 3 ways to handle such an occurrence. One is to turn back, retrace your steps and start over in a different direction at the last fork you took. The second is to just give up. Find a nice, cozy hovel at that place, hunker down for a life of regret and self-loathing, sure, why not? Keep heavy drink and drug on hand and just let that ride you out until your maker finally claims you. The third option is to get on a boat, or perhaps an airplane, and go off the roads altogether. Find a new world, one not linked to the path that just ended. All roads lead to Rome, perhaps that’s true for some people. But no roads in Puerto Rico lead anywhere.
Or so says Hunter S. Thompson.
Yes, the great king of Gonzo himself, the last prophet of the modern world, a true genius of the highest caliber and the lowest mind wrote a book based on his experiences working for some low-rent English-speaking newspaper in Puerto Rico just as it went from savage to colonialized. He named the thing THE RUM DIARY, his only truly fictional work, a beautiful paean to the pointlessness of trying to do anything in a country full of oppressive heat, violent locals, and an ungodly amount of warm rum.
And now there’s a movie coming out, just a few weeks, yes, and it will be everything myself and all the Gonzo fans have been waiting for.
Bruce Robinson is directing. He wrote the script, perhaps one of the finest scripts I’ve ever read and that’s saying a lot seeing as I’m mostly a professional reader of middling stature. It keeps all the dark playfulness of the book, the twisted individuals who hopped that plane hoping for their second chance after rock bottom claimed their first. The visuals of a wild, foreign Puerto Rico as opposed to the plastic territory most people see today. The push and pull between legitimacy and bullshitting, between the people with the money and the power and the people with the wisdom and the cool influence. Even more, Robinson's classic WITHNAIL AND I is best described as FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS set in England with drug abuse replaced by rampant alcoholism and the search for the American dream replaced by the simple search for reprieve from the pain of life. Robinson was set to direct the original FEAR AND LOATHING movie but said it would be impossible so it turned to Terry Gilliam to pull together one of the most brilliant adaptations to screen ever seen. This is his second chance. He knows the characters, knows the writer, knows the dynamic. He will not let us down.
The book has no real plot; some cast-aside notion about a love triangle and the push pull of malcontents against hapless higher management so a driving force had to be added to the movie. The conflict centers on Paul Kemp, the center knot in a tug of war between selling out to the fatbacks for a life of glamorous wealth and the maintenance of journalistic and artistic integrity. This is an idea that must be addressed in this twisted modern era and HST himself would have approved of Robinson’s construct.
Depp is back as the good Doctor. And with a cast that includes Aaron Eckhart, Giovanni Ribisi, a love triangle over Amber Heard (remember the hot high school girl from PINEAPPLE EXPRESS?) and Mr. Doback from STEPBROTHERS, this will be one goddamn visually, emotionally, and artistically satisfying romp.
WARNING: THIS IS NOT FEAR AND LOATHING! If you expect to see rampant hallucinogen abuse and apes, high-powered automobiles and drug-addled knife-wielding massive Brown Buffalo Samoans asking to be electrocuted, you will be confused. This is a story about a man. At the end of the road but hoping a simple flight will get him onto a newer, better one. A noble ambition, to be sure. But this quest is full of warm rum, tropical violence, and the great losers of the Caribbean press. A nice place to stay and rest before figuring out what comes next. And even more beautiful when you think that what came next was the birth of Gonzo, one of the most creative, wild, inspirational, and mind-blowingly memorable voices in modern literature.
Still, I’m thinking due to the conservative nature of thie country on the whole and the lack of education plaguing the mainstream this movie, in spite of the fact it’s my most anticipated of the year, will open somewhere around $15 million. And that’s being generous.
Here’s to hoping I’m wrong.
RUM DIARY launches October 28. I expect all you bastards to be there.
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