***/****
starring Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, Helena Bonham Carter
screenplay by Justin Haythe and Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio
directed by Gore Verbinski
by Walter Chaw What Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger
has going for it, in addition to a genuinely ugly streak of nihilism and a
surprisingly high body count, is that it doesn't seek to "darken" its
titular boyscout hero so much as offer that his brand of do-gooderism seems
naïve and ineffectual in the modern conversation. It's the same tactic taken by
Arthur Penn's own picaresque western Little Big Man, the film it most resembles right down to the framing story: an aged narrator
relating his sometimes fanciful tale to a modern chronicler, used to amusing
effect when the plot gets out of hand, Princess Bride-style. It's like a
lot of movies, I guess (including two Simon Wincer westerns, Quigley Down Under
and Lightning Jack), which doesn't mean it's derivative so much as it
means that it plays like any number of satires of the kind of innocence that
made the Lone Ranger character a favourite of impressionable
young Americans for generations. It's more the anachronism of The Brady Bunch Movie than
the update of Man of Steel, in other words–and the better for it, even
if its ultimate message appears to be that the crimson tide has overtaken us,
once and for all, and there's no real room left in the world for the idealism
represented by a hero with a list of creeds, the first of which is that to have
friends one must first be a friend.
Fledgling District Attorney John Reid
(Armie Hammer, playing Brandon Fraser) survives the raucous escape of cannibal
serial killer (seriously) Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner) to find himself
paired with outcast Cherokee wendigo-hunter Tonto (Johnny Depp), who's hot on
Butch's trail. Reid, wearing a mask made from the vest of his dead, heroic,
Texas Ranger brother, shoots only to wing and speaks in perfect, feminine-coded
grammar; Tonto, dead bird on head, adds another selfish performance to Depp's
growing list of such things, though it somehow manages to be less offensive
than distracting for how it's always on the verge of being offensive. There's a
flaccid love angle with the widow Reid (Ruth Wilson, the very reincarnation of
Kimberly Williams's brief career); a weird cameo by Helena Bonham-Carter as a
one-legged whore; and a snarling baddie in industrialist Cole (Tom Wilkinson),
but never you mind. Smart folks will note that this is Depp doing Gary Farmer from the Depp-starring Dead Man while lamenting that Dead
Man is a masterpiece doomed to have grossed a fraction of a fraction of what The
Lone Ranger will. They're right, of course, but smart folks
should note as well that Tonto's ex-tribe identifies him at one point as "banned
apart," which is, also of course, a reference to Jean-Luc Godard's seminal
nouvelle vague masterpiece Bande a part. Not only does it reflect the
film's desire to be seen as stylized satire, it works, too, as characterization of
the hero and sidekick as eternal outsiders. Clever? Sort of, I guess, but
points for trying, and at the end of it all, The Lone Ranger is not so bad a companion piece to the
better-and-better Rango as initially feared.
In fact, The Lone Ranger, with its
slaughter of dozens of innocents, its moments of real grotesquerie (such as the baddie eating a good guy's heart, reflected in the hero's eyeball), is
almost as weird as Rango. Consider that the aged Tonto narrator figure
is housed in a hall of curiosities at a travelling carnival, just next door to
the freak tent. Consider, too, that any tale talking about the connecting of
the transcontinental railroad and Manifest Destiny has the inevitable ending of
an indigenous people occupying an almost impossible space in our representative
wonderland. Depp's Tonto isn't like Hugo Weaving's Fu Manchu baddie from Cloud
Atlas–he's much more like Iron Eyes Cody's crying Indian from the Keep
America Beautiful campaign. It's complex; suffice it to say it's the stupid White Man who comes off the
worse in a picture that is at its heart a withering indictment of industrialism
and greed: Note a scene where a roomful of Rich Uncle Pennybagses get Gatling-gunned for no discernible narrative reason. The irony of a bloated blockbuster
(in running time and budget, both) commenting on filthy lucre is lost on no
one, probably, yet The Lone Ranger comes off as, most ironically of all,
something like a labour of love for a character so unbelievably square that he
becomes symbolic of our disappointment in ourselves. He's the kind of
hero Superman used to be; it makes one wonder if the true incarnation of the
Man of Steel on the big screen is one who understands, indeed embraces, his legacy of
terminal dullness and builds an atmosphere of loss and regret
around him. Anyway, The Lone Ranger is pretty good in a "what the
hell is it" sort of way. In this summer season, at least, you take what
you can get.
Well, this is a pleasant surprise, I was certain this was going to be awful.
Way to damn this movie with faint praise (especially since most critics are just damn condemning it)
Essentially the review boils down to ‘it’s good for what it is and at least it’s trying and considering the rest of the mindless drek out there, it’s pretty alright I guess.’
It feels more like a bad review of this summer’s slate than a good review of the movie itself…
Interesting remarks on Superman. I think it’s accurate. It’s about nostalgia and loss, and being willing to look foolish as the world around you changes and mocks you. (Same with Captain America. Although, the first half of the Marvel film surprised me by realizing the character’s strength is as an underdog who hates bullies, and not a jingoistic cliche.)
Anyway, I might actually give Lone Ranger a shot.
Your take is fascinating for reasons I’ll probably only share live over beers some day.
We need to find a time and opportunity at some point.
B
Review by man-crush, that’s the Walter Chaw style.
If they remake ‘The Producers’ with Johnny Depp, it will get three stars too!
@GuestGuest: Tell me again how this works while I read Walter’s pans of the last three Pirates movies, Alice in Wonderland, and The Rum Diary.
Okay, I could be wrong, but I really think the old Indian chief said that Tonto was “a man apart,” not “banned apart.” The latter phrase doesn’t really make sense in the context of the sentence.
The chief says Tonto is a “band apart.” Some tribes are called bands. For example, the Eastern Band of Cherokee in North Carolina. While the reviewer got it slightly wrong with “banned”, he got it right with the reference I think. I love the movie, and will see it again. It offends my sensibilities as a person of American Indian descent not one bit.
this is the most surprised i’ve been by a FFC review in a while. can’t believe Walter liked this thing.
though, upon reading the review again, it really comes off more like one of Chaw’s 2 1/2-stars type reviews, so whatevs.
I am convinced that THE LONE RANGER is one of the best films of the year. I did not walk in with the PIRATES franchise in mind and I wasn’t all wrapped up in Depp. I figured I was going to see a western, but I wasn’t prepared to have to bring my CLOUD-ATLAS-watching game along with my M&Ms. There’s a LOT going on in this movie. For starters – and this idea means that a lot of reviewers are totally missing the point and/or looking for and at the wrong things – there is absolutely no reason to think that what is going on in the main action of the film is absolutely, literally real. You are seeing something that is at least semi-imagined, and the degree to which it is imagined depends on your interpretation of the framing device of the fair, and I see two different ones, both of which, I think, are valid: 1) this is a story told by Tonto as he chooses to tell (and embellish) it, and the way in which he tells it is itself telling, given what you learn of Tonto – again, from his own perspective 2) there was never a live, moving, speaking Tonto in that diorama. Hint: look carefully at the “trades” Tonto makes when he prepares to bury the Rangers. Also: at the end of the film, Tonto changes clothes…to resemble whom?
Too forgiving of this film’s flaws, although I guess it’s a fair trade-off considering that most critics are far too dismissive of its virtues.