Dear ‘Diary’

Johnny Depp is off to the Caribbean again this Friday in wayward, drink-swilling style, not as a pirate but as a cheeky ne’er-do-well journalist in The Rum Diary. The fact that this Hunter Thompson novel-turned-motion picture would not have seen the light of day had Depp not discovered it while rummaging through the late gonzo writer’s basement while living with the hard-drinking, loose-penned icon in preparation for his role in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas just proves Depp’s heart is in this project. As Paul Kemp, protagonist of Thompson’s 1961-written, 1998-published first novel, Depp takes a post at a rinky-dink Puerto Rican newspaper and falls in with a motley mix of expatriates and the beautiful young girlfriend of a wealthy American businessman on the make. As with Fear and Loathing, things do get a little surreal, and there is absolutely nowhere Thompson’s tale is afraid to go. Aaron Eckhart and Amber Heard co-star. Rated R.