Libertine

Johnny Depp is easily one of the best actors in cinema today and he always does an amazing job, but sometimes he picks roles because he feels they defy convention or the present interesting challenges for him as an actor. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that the role is any good. The Libertine is one of those roles it seems like. Depp is crude and sexually overheated and a complete son of a bitch and for me utterly boring.

The point seems to be in this movie to utterly shock you with the actions of the sexually depraved 2nd Earl of Rochester John Wilmot. He was a real life 17th century earl who wrote raucous poetry. Plus is wholly uninteresting, at least as he is represented here. He has an affair with an actress played by the always delightful Samantha Morton and there is even a nice performance by Rosamund Pike as Wilmot's wife. None of the performances are bad, in fact all of them seem very technically proficient. But the story is so uninteresting that I didn't care. Wilmot states at the beginning that you will not like him and he is write I didn't like him. But I didn't hate him either. I was utterly nothing by him. The complete disinterest that he put in me made me disinterested in his story and everything else. And when it ended, I thought a good two hours of my life were gone and I would never get it back.