The Rum Diary
FilmDistrict | Release Date: October 28, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
16
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierOct 28, 2011
Luckily, the cast is comfortable going with the flow. Ribisi is amusingly corrosive, while Jenkins and Rispoli are sweaty, cigar-chomping movie-journalist archetypes. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 27, 2011
A mild lark disguised as a wild bender, The Rum Diary is also a touching tribute to Thompson himself. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyOct 27, 2011
In every move, Depp makes you believe this was a passion project for the actor, one he dedicates to Thompson. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid FearOct 25, 2011
You can't deny the fun of seeing Depp retro-construct a muted version of his Vegas mugging like De Niro riffing on Brando's Don Corleone. (His reaction to swigging homemade rum is worth the price of admission alone.) Read full review
50
New York PostKyle SmithOct 28, 2011
The legend of Thompson is immortal, though, and it'll fall to each generation to jam him into its own mold. Depp and Robinson's view is that Thompson was like a mullet: a party in the back but all business upfront. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 27, 2011
The weakest link here is Heard, who possesses the icy cool of Kim Novak but whose character never quite comes into fuller focus than as a hyper-sexualized object of desire. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 27, 2011
That the movie is leisurely and unconventional is all part of its charm, too - until it isn't anymore. The movie is a tale of corruption, but then it's not. It's a love story, but no, not quite. Later, it flirts with becoming a great journalism tale, or at least a whimsical journalism tale, but that vein leads nowhere, too. Nor is it much of anything else. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 27, 2011
The Rum Diary has been retroactively Hunter S. Thompson-ized. And not for the better. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 27, 2011
There are times when the story behind the making of a film is more interesting than the finished product. This is one of those occasions. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesOct 27, 2011
Despite some scattered moments of bad craziness involving the hero and his drinking buddies (Michael Rispoli, Giovanni Ribisi), the spine of the story is no strange and terrible saga but a conventional morality tale. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanOct 26, 2011
To the audience, this stuff seems like awfully old news. We're supposed to be witnessing the birth of a great journalist, but Hunter S. Thompson, as his career went on, got swallowed up by his mystique as an outlaw of excess. In The Rum Diary, that myth becomes an excuse for a movie to go slumming. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedOct 25, 2011
Johnny Depp is dismally miscast as the alter ego of the rebellious author with the "screw you" attitude. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJ. HobermanOct 25, 2011
The Rum Diary could use a shot of the mania that fueled Terry Gilliam's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." As deadpan as he is, Depp could use a crazed Benicio Del Toro to complement his cool. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerOct 25, 2011
The Rum Diary, Bruce Robinson's amorphous hodgepodge of a film, wants to be many things: period recreation, social commentary, morality play, romance, an insider look at the newspaper game. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyOct 22, 2011
The Rum Diary remains a relatively mild diversion, not at all unpleasant but neither compelling nor convulsive. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovOct 27, 2011
What The Rum Diary lacks in narrative astonishment it almost makes up for in boozy charm. Depp, Ribisi, and Rispoli are a sight to behold. Read full review
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