The Rum Diary - film review

I wish I could write something worthwhile whilst on a drinking binge, it’d make my life a whole lot easier, but unfortunately I have to be in a period of sobriety, get up very early in the morning and quickly soak myself in bad coffee before my brain starts working and the words start drying up. No rum, wine or beer for me.

Then again, writing isn’t my livelihood, it’s currently just a hobby, but I can imagine that when you’ve got a writing deadline to keep to in order to earn money to buy food and you find yourself just not in the mood to type anything then, for some, alcohol might be the only way forward.

The Rum Diary is set in a world populated by men with furious writer’s block. They work for a newspaper they don’t read and have to write articles about stuff they don’t care about. One day they’ll get out, one day, but right now the editor’s holding their paycheques and nothing’s flowing, so they drink until something does flow. They have to write bullshit and so they get into the state where they talk bullshit.

The film’s a mixed bag of Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas hedonism and Withnail & I brotherly comradely. If it all feels like the work of a man who was drinking heavily whilst adapting it to the screen then, fear not, because writer/director Bruce Robinson was (after writer’s block ended a six year sober spell). Robinson is an avid researcher and, if you read the Smoking In Bed collection of interviews with him, a great raconteur; it’s just a shame he’s remembered most for his least researched (but personally experienced) film. The Rum Diary has a lot of background and depth to it, even though it rarely emerges on the surface, but you feel the weight of the thinking behind it, you can feel that there could be a million footnotes to each scene.

But the film struggles to juggle three plots at once: a romance, an insight into journalism and a drama about corruption. Each is paid off and tied up nicely, but none seem to be the driving force of the film or the energy behind it’s creators. The strongest aspect of the film is the world that these plots inhabit; Robinson has deftly carved a real universe for us to indulge in with it’s mix of sweaty alcoholics and sharp suited egomaniacs. We don’t feel like we’re on a set or behind a fenced off location, we’re in there with the characters taking notes and pictures for tomorrow’s paper and risking life and limb to find a bed for the night.

Johnny Depp “reprises” his Raoul Duke from Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, in spirit anyway. He plays frustrated novelist/journalist Paul Kemp on the cusp of inspiration and drug dependency. He’s young, handsome, idealistic and still chasing girls. The collection of layabouts he meets make him seem like the straight laced one, especially the marvellously vile but somehow loveable Moberg, who Giovanni Ribisi plays to terrifyingly brain-fried perfection.

There are a few bumpy rides in the script. Some characters seem to share something we’re not seeing on screen and by the end there are tearful goodbyes from people who don’t seem capable of tearful goodbyes. Have they all really shared so much? They had a few adventures and nearly got sent to prison, but I don’t recall seeing them bonding on an intimate level.

Never mind, I’m sure it all makes sense if you’re drinking.

I recommend The Rum Diary as a ship-in-a-bottle representation of a time, a place and a way of life that few would genuinely want to experience for themselves. The only glamour in this world is found amongst the people who fence themselves off from it and live inside a bubble with no real connection to the outside world. The film shows you the difference between simply existing and experiencing life and all it’s joys and horrors.

Savour it.

Oh and I wrote this review whilst drinking a bottle of red wine… any good?

4/5

Edge Of Darkness (2010) - film review

There’s a grittiness that’s missing from Edge Of Darkness that undermines it’s poignant centre. It’s a crime thriller about revenge and corruption but it’s central preoccupation is in the disruption of domestic quietness by the corruption and greed of absolute power. The film is glossy and elegant where it perhaps should have been murky and rough around the edges. Director Martin Campbell, who also helmed the original British television series with Bob Peck that this is based on, goes through great lengths to be faithful to his original work, but by keeping a steady hand on his camera and composing his frames with a an artist’s eye he lets the soul of the piece drift away from him slightly.

The film also suffers from the now fading paranoia that First World countries murder their own people to cover up conspiracies. It might happen, I don’t have any facts in front of me, but the way these films portray officials and their footsoldiers as mass murdering psychopaths is unconvincing in a contemporary world where information travels too fast for devils such as these to stop it. I may sound naïve, but I just don’t think these people are out there hiding behind their titles and credentials. The greatest corruption comes from laziness and cowardice, not from malevolence.

Mel Gibson has trod the territory of a gnarled, unstoppable vigilante before, only here he’s meant to begin as a placid, unexcitable policeman with no enemies hiding in the woodwork. I didn’t believe it. With great respect to Gibson, who does a fine job, the film needed an actor without such solid action credentials who would surprise us with their sudden turn to violence and frenzied behaviour.

The mood of the film sometimes reminded me of Blade Runner in it’s pace, it’s lighting and it’s switching to quiet scenes of contemplation not only with it’s main protagonist, but also with it’s secondary characters who you wouldn’t be expecting to follow “off camera”. These are nice elements which build on the film’s gripping layers and make it an enduring work that might have risen to the status of a masterpiece had the big budget sheen of Hollywood not polished over a very tragic series of events.

Edge Of Darkness takes it’s time and, like Ray Winstone does at one point in the film, savours it’s 117 minute life with, and like, a fine wine. It’s just a shame Edge Of Darkness’ many conclusions and confrontations have to be so run-of-the mill and familiar.

The biggest surprise in Edge Of Darkness is that it has a genuine heart and it makes you feel something. That the production values try so hard to numb you with their beauty is unfortunate, but you will walk away moved and satisfied and believing that good will prevail, and that’s a nice feeling.

3/5

The Inbetweeners Movie - film review

Sort of beyond criticism in a way, but I’ll give it a go.

All you basically need to know is that if you enjoyed the series like I did then you’ll enjoy this. The film’s meant to provide a grand finale to the series (that won’t be coming back for a fourth season) and it does just that.

As always the central characters are self-absorbed, charmless, awkward, desperate, ignorant and frustrating in a way that teenagers generally are, but deep within their adolescent cocoon grows an adult that can be sensitive, patient, understanding and articulate. Maturity comes from experience and the four boys in The Inbetweeners Movie receive experience by the bucket load.

Amazingly and to it’s credit the film does well to keep on track and hold the attention throughout, steering clear of any “zany” sub-plots that other comedy films resort to when the writers run out of things for their characters to do. It’s just about four boys (I think the actors are actually in their mid-twenties) going on a lads holiday and making idiots of themselves but eventually finding… well, that’ll be giving the game away :)

I laughed, I cried, I hid behind my hands with embarrassment, I cringed at the bad acting and I wished Greg Davies (the headteacher) was in it more (although his final pay-off over the closing credits is delicious).

This should stand as a model for all sitcom-to-movie efforts out there currently in the works as this is how it’s meant to be done.

4/5