HUGE PLOT HOLES

...and terrible screenwriting:

1. Kemp shows up on the dock to leave and Sanderson says "You blew it, Kemp." and sails away without him. How did he blow it? Kemp didn't do anything! Sanderson should be rightfully pissed that his girlfriend likely just got raped (more on that in a second) but Kemp didn't rape her. He even helped Sanderson get out of there alive. This is crucial as the rest of the movie rests on the idea that Kemp somehow fell out of Sanderson's good graces. Incidentally, the entire third act (everything after that) is EXTREMELY RUSHED leading to several major holes.

2. Kemp leaves Chenault in bed when he hears a record playing in the next room. What?! This was almost criminal. Kemp has been trying to get with Chenault the entire movie, in fact she's the only thing he's been after - she has been built up as this tremendous prize and rightfully so as she's extremely hot here. He finally get's her in bed, and decides to stop when he hears his crazy roommate playing an obscure record in the other room? WTF?!?!

3. WE NEVER SEE CHENAULT AGAIN . This is the real problem with that scene and the movie as a whole. He doesn't go back and finish after, and he doesn't even have a second chance to close the deal later on because two scenes later...

4. Kemp get's a note from Chenault saying that she left for NY, and he IMMEDIATELY AND COMPLETELY FORGETS ABOUT HER. Out of context that would be an odd plot hole, but you have to appreciate it in context, as it may be one of the worst cases of lazy screenwriting in modern cinema . In the scene before, Kemp has this big defining moment where he decides to publish Sanderson's atrocity and fight the establishment. The utterly abrupt and all encompassing shift of Kemp's objectives - that's the lazy part. Up until that point, getting Chenault was Kemp's only true objective. He was indifferent to Sorenson's plan. He finds out the paper shut down, then, in the very next scene, Chenault literally DISAPPEARS from the story and we're meant to accept that he's now wholly-consumed with stopping Sanderson. It's like she was written out of a bad sitcom. To add insult to injury, even the dialogue in that scene has problems:

5.

Kemp: "She's gone to New York. She left me $100."
Sala: "You should use it to go with her."

Kemp clearly says gone, not going, and she clearly is gone. How could he go with her? What's more, every guy knows that if you suddenly walk out on a girl you're just about to make it with and come back to find a note saying "I've gone to New York", chances are she doesn't want you to follow. The very worst part about all of this, though, is that Chenault isn't even mentioned again - not until the very, very, (very) end when...

6. The resolution of the main on-screen relationship takes place in a short title card just before the credits. Someone (probably Johnny Depp, as he EPed this movie too) ran out of money, time, patience, or a combination of the above. Even the most amateur of screenwriters wouldn't been dumb enough to end the film this way on purpose, so it's safe to assume that this incredibly tacky "oh, by the way" ending came about because they couldn't afford to shoot it (They would have had to go to New York or a look-a-like location) and were too close to the source material to change it so they could stay in PR. Rest assured, though, that a major studio would have probably anticipated the 27 million dollar loss this movie became and made a different sacrifice.


7. An acid trip effectively inspires Kemp to save the people of the island. At that point in the film, the people of the island have only done two things for Kemp: 1.Tried to kill him and 2. Gang-raped the woman he loves. Yet somehow, a conversation with a lobster leaves him with the impression that they are society's victims. While this is no doubt true in real life, his characters experiences refute this perspective so severely that for him to arrive at that conclusion is ridiculous. If that's where this was headed, you'd have expected the writer would have included at least one sympathetic native character.


8. The confidentiality agreement never comes up. Much is made of this confidentiality agreement and it's significance as the one thing preventing Kemp from telling people what he knows. However, as he prepares to do exactly that, no mention is made of the agreement. It's not actively circumvented, or even disregarded. It never comes up again.

A last bit of irony: All of this taken into account, one might jokingly suppose that, considering the material, the screenwriter (who also directed) "must have been drunk". As it turns out, he actually was. Bruce Levinson, a recovering alcoholic, got writers block while developing the screenplay and turned to the bottle for answers, ending six years of sobriety. He admitted as much in an article in The Independent during publicity for the film.