Minamata review - Johnny Depp attempts redemption in heartfelt look at disaster that struck Japanese town
(The Guardian Japan)

Depp plays real-life US photojournalist W Eugene Smith who travels to cover the story of mercury poisoning that caused horrendous disfigurementsMinamata is not a masterpiece and there are one or two cliches here about western saviours and boozy, difficult, passionate journalists who occupy the perennial Venn diagram overlap between integrity and alcoholism. This movie´s producer-star Johnny Depp has form on this score, with his starstruck impersonation of Hunter Thompson. And once again, he has chosen a role in which he wears a hat indoors. But Minamata is a forthright, heartfelt movie, an old-fashioned `issue picture` with a worthwhile story to tell about how communities can stand up to overweening corporations and how journalists dedicated to truthful news can help them.Depp plays real-life US photojournalist W Eugene Smith whose glory days were in the second world war and the decades following, working for Life magazine in that now-forgotten era when analogue cameras were incapable of lying and magazines with compelling photos could command newsstand sales. Continue reading...