This movie more or less opened and died on its opening weekend during Halloween, so I won’t waste too much of anyone’s time on a sure-fire bomb that won’t be remembered as having existed by this time next year.
What Works: Not a lot. The opening credits set to a soaring sky view of 1960’s Puerto Rico set you up for a good movie that doesn’t exist. Also, Amber Heard is blankly ravishing as a blonde beauty Depp’s reporter falls for, and some of the movie’s side diversions into debauchery (a bad drug trip, a bowling ball smashing through bottles of rum) at least break up the movie’s inertness. Some are going to like this movie a lot…many aren’t.
What Doesn’t Work: Although the slackness in this movie is somewhat refreshing compared to the “Everything has to be tight, all the time” current Hollywood rhythms, it eventually just feels lazy. A lot of things that are supposed to seem quirky and hilarious actually come off as haphazard and barely trying. And, once again, Johnny Depp proves he basically has two modes: wild, off the wall, and flamboyant in a completely one-dimensional way (Mad Hater, Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka, Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) or too-cool-for-school blankness (The Tourist, Blow, Hunter S. Thompson’s stand-in in this movie). To say he’s interesting to watch in this movie would be a lie, to say he makes this–basically the origin story of how Hunter S. Thompson became Hunter S. Thompson–a fitting tribute to Thompson’s bravado would also be a lie. Thompson just seems like a half-formed deadbeat, too passive to really rage against the machine (he manages to whine about the “bastards” of the world but do nothing about it…or even try that hard).
What I Would Have Done Differently: Pick a tone and stick to it. It either needs way more energy if it’s going to be about getting fucked up in 1960’s Puerto Rico, or it needs way less side diversions if it’s going to be about real estate intrigue in 1960’s Puerto Rico. The “origin story” of Hunter S. Thompson is also an interesting idea…but then why call Depp’s character Paul Kemp and not really delve into what made this blank slate of a man we’re watching?