Pirates star takes a break from kid-centric movies to honor his old pal Hunter Thompson with this louche, fitfully appealing comedy. “I tend to avoid alcohol when I can,” says Kemp (Johnny Depp), a reporter who has just joined an English-language newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Actually, he tends to avoid not drinking. Calibrating his liquor consumption as “at the upper end of social,” Kemp hitches an occasional ride on the wagon, then gets off and brags, “I finally beat my will power.” The Rum Diary, a fictionalized account of Hunter S. Thompson’s life as a freelancer in Puerto Rico, hits theaters on October 28.
In honor of the late-career novel that he wrote during his early days as a reporter, a look back at the infamous journalist’s life in pictures.
