Reflection about the movie: The Rum Diary

Monday, March 24, 2014


The Rum Diary: 

     

          The setting of this story occurs in the year 1960 in the island of Puerto Rico. The main character, Kemp, come to the island looking to work for a known newspaper. Little know to this, the island is run by a corrupt group of people who have a lot of money and are looking into getting richer taking advantage of poor people. The first encounter Kemp faces with a corrupt police and justice department is when he attended a small bar in the beach and an argument ensued between his guide and the waiter. The argument is about the availability of food and the activate of the waiter. The main character end up leaving the bar with his guide after paying for the food, but the local people follow them and continue the argument in the road. The argument turns violent and the local police arrived and arrested the main character and accused them of violence and assault. In the courtroom the main character and his friends are denied the basic right of having a lawyer to represent them and are given a thirty days incarceration sentence. At this point, the main antagonistic character, Edward Thompson, comes into the play and manage to paid the judge 1,000 dollars for each accuser and they are kept free. This man takes the main character, Kemp, and tried to buy his conscience giving him a place to live, a sport car, and access to his house and the young woman that lives with him. A romantic attraction arises between Kemp and the young woman, Chenault, but the main character doesn’t take advantage of this fact until later in the story, when the girl tries to break the relationship and uses the main character to accomplish this. When his benefactor finds Kemp a job at the local newspaper and took him to the land he wanted to buy from the local people in order to built several hotels and a marina, the main character realizes that his benefactor plans will harm the poor local people that live in this island and changes his mind. Kemp attempts to publish the truth about his benefactor and his associates. This last attempt he tries to accomplished obtaining the money from the cockfight but the benefactor managed to steal all the necessary equipment needed to publish the newspaper. With no other alternative Chenault flies to New York and Kemp followed her stealing the sailboat of Mr. Thompson. The story ends up Kemp marrying Chenault and the formation of the newspaper “Bastards” which served to proper the right of the poor people.  

      On the other hand, the main problem with this poor society is their ignorance about the rights in society. The rights that the law has to provide them in society. The people that are trying to take advantage of them know this and use the local beverage, which is rum, to kill these happy people and made them unaware about the true purpose of capitalism. Therefore, I believe that the title of the movie, The Rum Diary, is an appropriate and a good title because in all the scenes in the movie that the main character gets him into trouble with the local police, justice department, and the local people. The common factor of these is that they have ingested alcohol and they have altered the reality in their environment. 

1. http://www.impawards.com/2011/rum_diary_ver2.html

2. http://www.fanpop.comwww.fanpop.com/clubs/the-rum-diary/images/25229478/title/trailer-rum-diary-screencap

3. http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/the-rum-diary/images/26156899/title/rum-diary-photo

4. http://theinquisitiveloon.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/the-rum-diary/