Lone Ranger (2013)

When I first saw trailers for Gore Verbinski's "The Lone Ranger," I found myself wondering, "Why is Johnny Depp playing Tonto?" After recently streaming the movie through Vudu, I'm still wondering. This was one of those films I just plain had no desire to see when it was released in theaters. The casting of Depp as Tonto spoke volumes about how Verbinski would be interpreting the classic story of the Texas Ranger-turned-vigilante. While this choice isn't the single biggest issue I have with "The Lone Ranger," it's one that stands out as simply inexplicable and points to the flaw that just plain sinks it--the movie just isn't quite sure what it wants to be, and the result is a mess that really isn't very entertaining.

There can be little doubt that "The Lone Ranger" is a comedy, but exactly what kind of comedy is it? And that's where the problem lies. It's too over-the-top to fall into the genre of the typical adventure comedy. In typical adventure comedy you have to be able to suspend disbelief at least to some level for any of it to be funny. Take the buddy cop movie "The Heat," for example. It's an outrageous affair, but you accept Sandra Bullock's Ashburn as the straight-laced FBI agent and Melissa McCarthy's Mullins as the tough, independent street detective. Though "The Lone Ranger" is a western, I argue that it clearly falls into the buddy cop formula. The two are always reluctant partners who are forced to learn how to work together and then form a bond of friendship. But it's too much of a leap to see Depp as Tonto unless this is a buddy cop formula more in line with Will Farrell and Mark Wahlberg's "The Other Guys." At least "The Other Guys" makes no pretense about its outrageousness, which is clearly established when Highsmith and Jansen jump off the top of the building.

If you're going to cast Depp as Tonto, then you need to go all-in with the absurd because that's ultimately what this movie is--just plain absurd. It fails because it doesn't understand the level of its absurdity and doesn't throw itself wholeheartedly into that mode.

It's got plenty of the formulaic elements for a hilarious western parody: the over-the-top villain who cuts out and eats the hearts of his victims, the sidekick who is more competent than the initially inept titular hero, neckbearded henchmen who vacillate between cruel and foolish, a good-hearted hero who just isn't very heroic. So why isn't this movie funny? I think I'd rather just queue up Don Knotts in "Shakiest Gun in the West." That movie understands what it wants to be, and it's funny, genuinely funny.

Most of the jokes just come off as lame and contrived. It's obvious "The Lone Ranger" doesn't take its subject or source material seriously. The action sequences are too hyperbolically impossible to be seen as anything other than cartoonish, but it's presented as if the audience is expected to accept it in the same way that certain absurd events occur in the Indiana Jones films, particularly in "Temple of Doom." For scenes such as the train wreck to be hilarious, some part of it must be accepted at face value, but it just doesn't work. It's always the contrast between the serious and the absurd that makes action movies funny and enjoyable. If you don't believe me, just go back and watch any of the Indiana Jones films or, for that matter, even "Romancing the Stone," the poor man's "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

I confess that I didn't watch all of "The Lone Ranger." I just didn't see any point in it. If they'd attempted to do an honest big screen treatment of the radio and TV character, it would have been one thing. If they'd attempted to do an utterly over-the-top parody, that would be another. I'd watch either of those movies no matter how bad they were. I can't watch this one because it's straddling the fence too much between the two. That just plain makes for a flat experience worthy of little more than background noise for a good nap.