Film Review | The Lone Ranger

Director Gore Verbinski's take on The Lone Ranger - a Western outlaw vigilante hero whose adventures in radio and print predate even Batman - was so savagely mauled on arrival by critics Stateside that it led its star, Johnny Depp, to suggest that the critics may have even been directly responsible for the film's comparatively meagre box office takings.

This is only plausible if we're to accept the fact that it's just critics clattering away at established publications with their missives and rants that have sunk this particular ship. In fact, by pointing their guns at a very easy and big target, my American colleagues also egged on the social media world to join them in their pre-emptive barrage of bile.

This is, after all, a film made 'by the people who brought you Pirates of the Caribbean', with Verbinski behind the camera, Depp in front and mega-blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer orchestrating the whole thing behind the scenes.

Yes, from the outside and from the outset, it looked like a crude and cynical attempt at replicating the golden goose formula of the 'Pirates' franchise.

After all, it's put Johnny Depp in a ludicrous costume again. This time, he's wearing caked-on and borderline offensive 'Native' makeup, and he's got a dead bird stuck on his head? Why? Don't ask (at least, not just yet)... but the ostensible reason is that he's playing a version of Tonto, erstwhile sidekick to the titular 'Lone Ranger', John Reid (Armie Hammer) as they stalk through the Wild West in a bid to cleanse it of villainy.

Hold on. We're going to have to rewind a little.

Like many films of its ilk in recent years, Verbinski's film is an origin story, and when we first meet John, he's not a ranger at all but a stuffy and bookish lawman who returns to his rugged Texas homestead with plans to instil an ethically sound sense of justice in the town, sheriffed by his formidable and decent - but morally quite old school - brother Dan (James Badge Dale).

Their loose plans for legal reform are cut short, however, when an infamous outlaw by the name of Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner) cuts both of them down in an ambush.

However, as Tonto oversees the carnage, he's joined by a supposedly mythical white horse, which instructs him to perform a resurrection rite on John (much to his chagrin - having already bumped into John while imprisoned in a train, he deems Dan to be the better option).

Though neither of them is keen on the other, it turns out that both John and Tonto now have a common enemy in Cavendish, though Tonto is coy about revealing what lies behind his grudge against the merciless - and, as it turns out, cannibalistic - outlaw.

On their quest for tough justice, the duo also encounters a more insidious antagonist: the ambitious railroad tycoon Latham Cole (Tom Wilkinson) who is building the country's largest railway line to date... as well as taking Dan's widow Rebecca (Ruth Wilson) and her son Danny (Bryant Prince) under his wing.

There's clearly a lot going on here, and the incessant plot twists - unspooling back and forth via flashbacks and flashforwards - bloat the running time to a damaging degree.

It feels more thrown together than constructed, with Verbinski coming across as anything but cool and collected - a trait that is easy to misplace for incompetence.

But nearly every element of The Lone Ranger - be it an outrageous set piece or a sly reference to a classic western (of which there are plenty) - feels as though it's put there out of an affection for the source material and in the interest of presenting a zany adventure.

Look, this is a film in which Helena Bonham Carter plays a brothel madam with a tattooed ivory leg that conceals a shotgun. You know what you're going in for, and if you accept Verbinski's ride on its own terms, it's an exhilarating experience.

In fact, even though he may be considered to be something of a Hollywood studio stalwart by virtue of having directed the 'Pirates' trilogy, Verbinski is actually not that cleanly 'streamlined' a director: he's dabbled in various genres and doesn't seem to have anything in the way of a stylistic trademark.

Other than, perhaps, striving to tell stories in the most energetic and appealing way possible.

But The Lone Ranger may in fact have something in common with what remains, in my mind, his best film to date. Also a western (of sorts) that makes use of Johnny Depp, the animated feature Rango may be more psychedelic and freeform by default, but it shares its chaotic, mischievous spirit with The Lone Ranger.

Instead of another too-serious superhero origin story in the tradition of Batman Begins, we get a romp that is brash, wildly funny and that, crucially, delivers the classic goods - William Tell Overture and all - when the time is right.

So it's sad that we depart The Lone Ranger on a sour note. Given its abysmal Stateside reception, the chances of well-deserved sequel are now quite slim.