I honestly don't know what to make of The Rum Diary—other than the fact that I vehemently despise it. Bruce Robinson's movie has no imagination, no drama, a teeny bit of comedy, bland actors, blander characters and an aimless story that goes nowhere. It's important to note that The Rum Diary is based on a novel of the same name by renowned author Hunter S. Thompson. I've never read the book, so I can't comment on how the film holds up to it, but I can only imagine that the book is leagues better than the film. Either that, or Mr. Thompson is phenomenally overrated.

The film stars Johnny Depp as boozing journalist Paul Kemp, who moves to Puerto Rico to take on a job working for The San Juan Star, a crumbling local newspaper. After being hired, Kemp runs into a crooked businessman named Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), who wants to pull a real estate swindle on a nearby island. He tries to recruit Kemp to write a few articles for him that would paint his housing schemes in a positive light. Kemp agrees—for reasons that are completely unfathomable to me— and, by association, meets Sanderson's girlfriend, Chenault (Amber Heard), on whom Kemp develops a crush.

If by this point I've written this movie to appear as though it has an intelligible plot, I've given it far more credit than it deserves. The movie is, in fact, about absolutely nothing. It's Seinfeld on Ex-lax. There are a few motifs going around that seem semi-plausible and almost interesting—like the efforts of the Star's editor, Lotterman (Richard Jenkins) to keep his paper alive; the love triangle between Kemp, Sanderson and Chenault; and Kemp's struggle to become a novelist amid his struggle with alcoholism. But all of these elements never really come together, and we are instead left with a series of frustratingly disconnected plot threads. Even worse, the movie can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama.

If my plot description reads like a drama, that's because it's what the movie should have been, and what it was promoted to be. On IMDb the film is listed as a "drama/mystery/thriller"—that's how confusing this film's content is.

The biggest issue is that the film is shot like a drama. The camera is extremely stagnant, utilizing mostly close-ups and the interpersonal shot-reverse-shots that are typically found in scenes of intense conversation. But the actual content of these shots is totally goofy, with the characters engaging in would-be witty banter, usually ending with one character saying something absurd and Depp looking at him with a confused and uncomfortable expression.

Speaking of uncomfortable, the most notable of the comedic scenes are just plain awkward, like when Kemp uses a telescope to watch Sanderson and Chenault having sex out at sea. This might be funny for a brief moment, but Kemp, drooling like a horn dog, jams his face up to the lens and appears to be settling in comfortably to watch them for a good long time before an attendant interrupts him. This just gives the impression that he's a complete pervert and robs the scene of any comedy.

There are further examples of this, such as when Kemp and his pal from the paper, Sala (Michael Rispoli), cram into a buggy and, in a very typical gag, the motion of the car combined with their erratic motions makes them look like they're in a homosexual tryst. Similarly, when Kemp first meets Chenault out at sea, she pops her head out of the water randomly after he had already been sitting in his boat for quite some time (had she been holding her breath for 10 minutes?) and he literally greets her by saying, "I thought you were a mermaid." Ugh.

The acting, meanwhile, is subpar. Aside from the drug-addled disgruntled former employee of the Star, Moburg (Giovani Ribisi), none of these actors were given characters who were remotely interesting. Depp, meanwhile, is unfortunately just as bland as Kemp. His rum binges and quest to be constantly inebriated just make him seem like a watered-down Jack Sparrow. And that act is tired enough as it is. Meanwhile, Chenault merely exists to be Kemp's temptress, while Eckhart does the best he can with his character Sanderson. He at least makes the attempt of taking his role seriously, which no one besides him and Ribisi seem capable of doing.

This movie is so bad it doesn't even do us the courtesy of wrapping up any one of its dangling plot threads. To give an example of the way the movie "handles" resolution—without giving too much away—let's take a look at the love triangle:

Chenault, despite her impending marriage to Sanderson, makes it clear from the get-go that she has the hots for Kemp. She never expresses any discontent with Sanderson; she just blatantly flirts with Kemp right in front of him all the time, though her fiancé doesn't seem to notice. Later in the film, there is a scene in which the three of them go to a club and Chenault gets drunk and starts dancing with other guys and letting them undress her. After Sanderson and Kemp get kicked out of the club, Sanderson becomes furious and blames Kemp for the whole thing, completely ignoring the fact that his fiancé is currently flirting with 30 random strangers. But it's all Kemp's fault. Makes sense, right?

This movie fails on just about every level. There is one funny scene where Kemp, hallucinating from one of Moburg's drug concoctions, sees Sala's suddenly-gigantic tongue coming at him. But a few rare inspired moments don't make up for the fact that nothing is resolved in a manner close to satisfying, and the movie's genre remains ambiguous up until the very end.

I don't know how the movie wound up so bad, but apparently this is director Robinson's (whom I had never heard of) first film in almost 20 years, so I think we know who to point fingers at. Let's hope it's at least another 20 before he steps behind a camera again.