Westerns are few and far between, and often for good reasons these days.
What They Say:
Native American warrior Tonto recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid, a man of the law, into a legend of justice.
The Review:
The production of The Lone Ranger would probably be a good enough movie in itself, to see how the financials of it all early on that caused it to be taken off the table for awhile and then everything involved in filming with these kinds of machines, the stars and the creative types behind the scenes. A lot of hay has been made of the film from the moment it was announced and the people involved as it was seen as an attempt to launch another Pirates of the Carribean type property for Disney and the racial whitewashing side of it with Johnny Depp playing Tonto, which would overshadow the actual lead character of the Lone Ranger himself, played by Armie Hammer. Add in a few familiar names to some other Depp and Verbinski properties and there’s just a little bit of an incestuous relationship going on here as well. Then thrown in the many, many negative reviews that hit just before it premiered and you could sense another John Carter situation for the film, which would be a massive black eye considering the talent involved.
The story is a fairly predictable origin story made somewhat convoluted by the fact that it’s a dual origin story since it has to cover both Tonto and John Reid for it. This is something that in a way does work well because both characters are equal here (even if it is a Lone Ranger film), because it doesn’t really keep Tonto to a sidekick role but rather the seemingly more wise and connected to nature character that helps guide Reid with what he may truly be destined to do as a spirit walker. Of course, we also find out that Tonto may just be plain crazy as well, which makes a lot of what he comes up with pretty much just suspect, even if it does work out in the end. With the film we also get a variety of villains in different areas that both of them have to contend with as it revolves around the Transcontinental Railroad project and the way it’s cutting through part of Comanche territory that also has a growing subplot about a massive amount of silver that can be found there.
With the more visible villain being that of Billy Cavendish, played by William Fichtner, we get the wily outsider criminal that cuts out hearts off screen and has done even worse to others in a way as he works with a twisted philosophy. He’s initially being transported to a hanging in Colby, Texas near where the railroad is expanding through and he gets a big rescue setup done while on the train, which is where we see John Reid is on and coming to visit his brother, the sheriff of Colby. Tonto’s also traveling with Cavendish as a prisoner and the circumstances end up throwing the two men together off and on for a bit until we get a whole lot of killing, including that of Reid himself, which allows him to be revived as an unkillable spirit warrior of nature that Tonto works with to achieve similar goals of justice, just with different ways of achieving them.
I’m not a huge fan of the property by any stretch, and I honestly can’t remember if I’ve even seen any of it before outside of clips and the like. But I’m also quite aware of it and its cultural significance overall, especially for previous generations that grew up on it. And I’m not much of a western fan either, though I’ve certainly seen my fair share of them over the years. This film takes a lot of the more basic ideas and just ramps it up in a way previous films and serials couldn’t because of budget and effects, making it a spectacle to be sure as we get the trains rolling all over the place, the large chase scenes and plenty of character action sequences as well. It’s not trying to be a serious western film by any stretch, at least along the lines of things like Unforgiven or The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, but it’s also not trying to be a comedy. It really is just a Pirates of the Carribean film on land with trains. And on a lot of levels it does work.
With so much bad buzz ahead of my going into it and some very legitimate savage reviews over it, especially with the whitewashing of it and the financial scale of it and all the other reasons, I had some lowered expectations to be sure. The film is certainly flawed since it is trying to do the dual origin story (something I wish films would just avoid of this nature and provide it either in brief flashback or in some other medium) and it suffers heavily from bloat with its run time. I could have been a half hour shorter with some better editing and tighter pacing when it comes to the script itself. It also suffers from the casting in a way since too much of the perception is just on seeing Depp as Tonto rather than Tonto, and Hammer is someone that I do enjoy but isn’t quite the right lead material here to make the character charismatic enough to work. He’s flawed and kind of simple principled and all here, but he’s not compelling. There’s also the very questionable choice of giving us a Tonto in the 1930’s that’s kind of senile that’s interspersed throughout the film as he talks to a young boy that knows the legend of the Lone Ranger.
But in the end, I have to admit I kind of enjoyed the film overall. It may not have what some diehard western fans when it comes to wanting a visual love letter for the old west, since there’s a kind of bland color design about it overall, but it provided me with a film that while it ran too long, was an amusing and easy way to pass the time. It doesn’t reach the quirkiness and fun of Depp’s other franchise and it lacks the kind of neat visual cues of Verbinski’s Rango film, which is a better western overall, but it provides a decent if confused film about the Lone Ranger with its tone and what it wants to do as Disney tries to find the right balance to achieve maximum revenue with it because of its PG-13 rating. There’s a lot of reasons why blockbusters are hard to do and why there are so many detractors in regards to them, using them as the symbol that’s all that’s wrong with Hollywood. Which we seem to here in a big way at least once a decade as a sign of the end of Hollywood. And there are definitely problems here. But there’s also some fun to be had here. I took my thirteen year old daughter with me, who has seen more of the original serials and movies than I have due to some “southern exposure” from other member sof her family, and she absolutely loved the film and what it was. I know, the mind of a thirteen year old. But I’ve exposed to her to a range of movies and TV shows over the years and she’s a big novel reader at that. So I’m always curious where her approach is in regards to movies and I was surprised she enjoyed it as much as she did and called it an amazing film because of how big and outgoing it was.
While I didn’t enjoy it as much as John Carter, it’s another film that’s caught up in a lot of problems because of the way the behind the scenes aspects go and feeds into a larger negative narrative that percolates for months and becomes stronger upon release. I’m certainly not saying I think this is an amazing movie, but I’m not finding it as mind numbingly bad as others seem to find it either. The Thursday afternoon audience I saw it with was an amusing experience itself since it was pretty much filled with white haired people and if my daughter wasn’t there, I’d probably be the second youngest person there after my girlfriend. But the audience enjoyed it and it’s something that I can see wanting to revisit in a year or two just to enjoy the sets and large action pieces more. I don’t think the movie will be memorable in the long run nor do I think it’s eventual failure at the box office will change much at all. It’s empty, mindless summer fare that lacks the kind of quirk and life that it needs to be a franchise but it’s also one that does some really fun things.
Grade: C
