The Lone Ranger ****
A lot is being uttered about The Lone Ranger, a Disney film that reunites Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski and star Johnny Depp, in what has got to be the most expensive ‘western’ in recent years (£165million to be precise). But although battered by American critics and arriving on these shores this week with attached low expectations, this sprawling and historically flawed visual reboot of a 1930s radio show is actually incredibly funny, mildly eccentric and a big-hearted and entertaining treat for Pirates fans – even if there are some tonal wobbles to question its family suitability.
Newbie lawyer John Reid (Armie Hammer) arrives in Colby, Texas, in 1869, armed with a copy of John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and determined to practice the law. However, after witnessing the brutal murder of his brother, Texas Ranger Dan Reid (James Badge Dale) at the hands of outlaw Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner) then saved from being buried alive by Silver, a curious, spiritual horse who loves dizzy heights and sipping hooch, John (who is now officially dead) teams up with an unlikely sidekick; a Comanche oddball loner called Tonto (Depp) with a dead crow on his head to put wrongs to right and bring Cavendish and other unsavouries to justice.
This has Pirates’ grand production values all over it, ambitious but beautifully shot for starters with some glorious landscapes to feast on, and complete with lots of galloping horses and some cowboys/militias-and-Indians punch-ups for western lovers. The fact that it obviously borrows from the likes of John Ford, with some stirring musical moments to get the juices flowing (such as the William Tell Overture to accompany an exhilarating train battle/crash) is not a bad thing either. Surely it’s high ho Silver away?
For most never old enough to contemplate details of the original work, this will always be a Depp draw as he plays another eccentric chump with face paint to rival his beloved Captain Jack character. Only this time, in Tonto, Depp adds subtlety of wisdom and is more straight-laced madcap (like a latter-day Buster Keaton) to help oust the tailspin that Hammer’s Reid finds himself in. This comedy duo works a treat, with many laughs given the breath to air in knowing pauses and head-slapping stupidity. Add a comical horse into the mix, Depp’s injection of ‘Kemosabe’ remarks and gravity-defying leaps, and this unlikely trio blaze across the screen with enough puff to reach the end point.
It’s understandable, perhaps, why some, Stateside, have objected to this film’s making – Lone Range story assault aside and historical inaccuracies, with its anti-American Dream stance and headline act being a Native American sidekick – and not the gallant hero on horseback. That said Verbinski has stuck with the winning formula of Depp in odd drag to get audiences to a ‘comedy western’ – it’s Depp’s show as Tonto after all, as he opens and closes the story (stick around after the credits for a melancholy moment of reflection). It’s also refreshing surely, to see a challenge to the birth of American consumerism in the suggestion that the great railroads’ birth was steeped in blood – which if you think about it, must have been the case.
In terms of the odd tonal issue, Dan Reid’s grizzly death is unnecessary, even in terms of plot, as the untimely outcome should be enough alone to spur any sibling to avenge. Helena Bonham Carter’s whore Red Harrington and her impressive wooden leg feel like something out of another quirky comedy and although titillating and amusing, is merely there to (often mechanically) move the plot along, plus an excuse to visit a whore house in an innocent, family-orientated Disney manner.
In the end, it could be argued that the Verbinski-Depp Pirates’ team has boldly used an American icon to forge yet another kooky character, hoping that Lone Ranger fans wouldn’t mind them ‘borrowing’, while counting on Pirates’ Sparrow fans to fill seats. It’s been an expensive gamble that is yet to pay off. But regardless of the naysayers’ protestations, The Lone Ranger has fun and madness at its core – much like the latter marauding saga, even if it brazenly wags its proverbial finger at the foundations of the American establishment in the process.
4/5 stars
By @FilmGazer
