The Lone Indian and his Ranger Sidekick

  

Notice that Johnny Depp's name comes before Armie Hammer's?

  
  First off, thank goodness I didn’t see this in theaters.  My whole family are fans of Johnny Depp, especially his roles in Alice in Wonderland, Edward Scissorhands, and Rango, so we had planned to go see it in theaters.  Luckily, my brother bikes over to Starbucks each Friday to get the newspaper just so he can read the movie reviews, all of which tore the movie apart.  So we wisely decided not to give The Lone Ranger the benefit of the doubt, and waited for the DvD rental to be released.  Then we watched it…  mistake number 1.  What was mistake number 2 you ask?  Watching all the way through it. 

  Unlike other great westerns of the twenty-first century – Rango, True Grit – Lone Ranger fell short of any standards you might set for it.  Indeed, I’m not sure I should even call it a western.  The movie had some serious identity issues, switching between comedy, action flick, western, and romance.  In the same scene, Tonto will joke about “Spirit Horse’s” unnatural behavior, and John Reid, AKA the Lone Ranger, will shoot up a bunch of bad guys and threaten to kill them if they don’t tell him where his dead brother’s wife is.  And all through the movie, John Reid tries to find and rescue his sister-in-law who he has a crush on.  So just to give you a brief overview of the story, here are the facts: SPOILERS AHEAD!

  John Reid, a lawyer, is on a train on its way to some random Midwest town bearing two convicted criminals, Tonto (good Indian) and Butch Cavendish (savage white American), so they can be executed.  Butch Cavendish breaks off the train; huge train crash follows which John and Tonto miraculously survive.  John Reid and his brother Dan go off to recapture Cavendish with several other rangers.  One of the Rangers betrays them though and all but John Reid die.  Tonto finds John and outfits him as the “Lone Ranger”, and together they plan to track down Butch Cavendish, who Tonto says is one of two “Wendigos”.  Meanwhile, Cavendish and his gang dress up as Indians and stir up trouble, causing the military to step in and exterminate the Comanche Indians.  Tonto and Reid are captured by the Comanche, and it is there that John learns of Tonto’s tragic back-story in which he sells his tribe’s lives by showing two “White Men” the giant silver cliff at the end of a river for a mere watch.  Tonto and Reid escape from the Comanche and go to the silver mine that Tonto showed the two evil Americans where they find and capture Cavendish and take him to the home base/train/camp where Rebecca Reid (John’s brother’s wife whom he had an incestuous affair with once long ago) is being held captive.  HEUUHH HAAEEGHHH HEUUHH HAAEEGHHH Ahah Ahah Ahah Ahah, almost halfway there… Ahah Ahah… *pant* *pant* *pant* just let me catch my breath… just a second…  At the train camp, it’s revealed that the minor, supporting, corporate greed, adulterous train investor whose name escapes me, is really Cavendish’s brother and the second “wendigo” that Tonto traded with.  John is captured, but Tonto saves him as a bunch of Comanche Indians randomly show up and attack the camp, but are subsequently slaughtered by the evil “White Men”.  The eventual final battle occurs, and Tonto and Reid end up saving the day, the girl, and the railroads from those evil, corporately greedy brothers.

  This film was so riddled with plot holes, mistakes, stereotypes, and blunders that I really have no idea where to start.  First of all, this movie’s portrayal of Indians, “White Men”, and Christians was just downright insulting.  All the Americans are evil, greedy, overweight sadists.  The lower class of them is hanging out in the harlot house, and the upper class just cares about their money and their railroads.  The Christians in particular are especially stereotyped.  They’re seen as weak and defenseless, as well as total loonies.  They are also depicted as racists and conspiracy theorists, who hate Indians and people of other ethnicities.  Many critics slammed this film for being racist against Native-Americans, while in fact the truth is almost the exact opposite, insulting those who are “racist” against the Indians in the movie.  Tonto remarks to corporate greed railroad guy:
Tonto: I thought you were Wendigo.  Now I see you are just another White Man. 
Don't even get me started on the bird…                      

  The cinematography, special effects, and acting also fell short of expectations.  Really, how does one manage to screw up a film with a budget larger than that of The Avengers?  The final battle, especially, was poorly executed.  All the major (and not so major too) characters were on the same train, punching and shooting at each other, and then the train somehow gets split into several different sections, instantly causing confusion of the viewers.  Tonto, Cavendish, and the cavalry officer are on one carriage, while John, Rebecca, and Mr. Corporate Greed are on another.  Then Tonto dispatches his villains, and decides to jump off his train carriage down to the train carriage passing beneath him, where Reid and Corporate Greed are duking it out.  The scenery as well is not all that impressive, despite the numerous locations in which it’s shot.

Control the water, Mr. Rango, and you control, everything.

  The scripting and story too were downright terrible.  Unlike his previous work, Rango, Gore Verbinski really botched this film.  The relationship between Tonto and Reid was confused and indecisive, leaving one questioning whether they were friends, acquaintances, or just allies.  Sometimes they’re helping one another simply because of the circumstances, others they’ll help each other out of genuine friendship, and in others they’ll just argue and yell at each other.  There really was no defined relationship between the two at the beginning, and there wasn’t at the end either.  On a different note, the film’s pacing was poorly thought through.  In all, the film was two and a half hours, which is far too long to begin with, and Corporate Greed villain isn’t exposed until more than halfway through the movie, at the one hour and forty minute mark.  Even the attempts at humor were paltry fare, although that was mostly due to Armie Hammer’s pathetic acting.

  That was another element in the film that went wrong.  The casting, especially that of Armie Hammer, wasn’t well thought out.  Armie Hammer couldn’t even keep his western/cultured accent consistent throughout the movie, constantly switching between the two.  Nor could he seem to summon any emotion, such as concern or love for his brother’s wife, fear of death, or camaraderie with Tonto.  Unlike in Mirror Mirror in which he was funny and likeable, in Lone Ranger he was just boring and somewhat annoying.   The casting crew also unnecessarily took on the well-known Helena Bonham Carter as the role of the Red Harrington, a prostitute who appears in a mere ten minutes of the film.  The rest of the characters were one-dimensional and boring, and were played by actors of similar traits. 

  In no world would I recommend this movie to anyone.  I would not recommend you buy this movie; I would not recommend you rent this movie; I would not recommend you borrow this movie; I would not recommend you watch this movie under any circumstances.  This movie is not even better than the horse crap that the Lone Ranger gets dragged through by Tonto and the “Spirit Horse”.  So please, save your selves the time and money and don’t see this film… Just. Don’t. 

Grade Rating: F- (yes, F minus)