REVIEW: The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger (2013): Dir. Gore Verbinski. Written by: Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio. Based on The Lone Ranger by Fran Striker and George W. Trendle. Starring: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper and Helena Bonham Carter. Rated PG-13 (Guns blazing). Running time: 149 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

The Lone Ranger is two-and-a-half hours long. If you’re wondering why an action reboot of a 1950s TV show (itself based on a 1930s radio serial) needs to be so long, you may find enlightening the fact that the director, Gore Verbinski, is the man who squeezed a total of seven hours and forty-three minutes’ worth of high seas adventures out of an eight-and-a-half minute theme park ride.

In all fairness, there are a few sequences in The Lone Ranger that gallop along with such jubilant energy you may be willing to forgive the bloated excesses of the film, which too often feels as though it is wading through molasses.

The best of these scenes is the climactic fight on a pair of speeding trains on parallel tracks. Set to the triumphant march of the William Tell Overture (the TV show’s theme), the battle adheres to Looney Tunes laws of physics and is an absolute thrill, though figuring out what exactly is happening and why might prove difficult. The scene is the climax of a jumbled and needlessly complicated plot and features no less than a half dozen participants. But as long as our heroes keep leaping, swinging and dueling, nothing matters except the chugga-chugga-choo-choo nonsense of the action.

During the film’s quieter passages, however, it is hard to muster much enthusiasm for the characters who populate this wild west world or understand their murky motivations. You know a script is weak when you’ve got Tom Wilkinson playing a corrupt politician, Barry Pepper as a mustachioed Army officer and Helena Bonham Carter as a one-legged prostitute, and your mind still wanders during the exposition.

But credit should be given to Armie Hammer who, it turns out, has charisma to match the impressive bone structure of his chiseled jawline. He is likable as John Reid, the dopey lawyer-turned-vigilante of the film’s title. He seeks to bring to justice (not revenge) to his brother’s cannibalistic murderer (William Fichtner, chewing the scenery and at least one man’s cardiovascular organ).

Getting just as much if not more screen time is Johnny Depp as Tonto, the wise-but-dumb Injun sidekick to the Lone Ranger. Tonto talks in fortune cookie phraseology and practices all kinds of goofy hokum, trying the Lone Ranger's patience and very often saving their skin. The character, a mostly inoffensive caricature rooted in decades’ old stereotypes, is a jokester who pokes fun at the white man’s hypocritical ways and acts as a catalyst for much of the film’s action. Johnny Depp, a gifted comedic actor, has a lot of fun with the role.

There’s a weeping damsel too who I very nearly forgot to mention. Rebecca (Ruth Wilson) is the widowed wife of the slain brother and (naturally) a romantic interest for the Lone Ranger. Keeping with the sexist traditions of the genre, the movie uses her as a prop. She spends half her screen time wringing her hands, gripping a scarf and holding back tears.

The Lone Ranger is a genial, good-natured waste of time, as pleasant as it is forgettable. And if you see it on a hot day, you’re guaranteed to get your money’s worth of air conditioning.

- Steve Avigliano, 7/8/13

REVIEW: True Grit

True Grit (2010): Written and Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the novel by Charles Portis. Starring: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper. Rated PG-13 (some intense scenes of western violence including disturbing images). Running time: 110 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

For the Coen brothers’ version of True Grit, who better to fill the shoes of John Wayne than Jeff Bridges? Though this neo-western isn’t as much a remake of its 1969 predecessor as it is a second adaptation of the original novel, a comparison to the film that won John Wayne his only Oscar is certainly warranted. Fresh off his own Best Actor award for last year’s Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges reunites with the Coens for the first (and only) time since The Big Lebowski. Bridges proves to be just as triumphant as Wayne playing the one-eyed, whiskey drinking U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn, and his performance is arguably even better because of its placement in a more confident and focused film.

Though Bridges receives top billing, the story belongs to Mattie Ross, played with restraint and poise by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld. While the original film was more of a John Wayne vehicle than anything else, the Coens stay closer to the source material by centering their film on Mattie, the 14-year-old girl who seeks vengeance on a drunken criminal named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) who has murdered her father. The determined young girl takes a train into town to see that her father’s body is returned her family’s home in the countryside. While in town, she has “some business” to take care of. That business includes hiring Rooster Cogburn to help her track down Tom Chaney and bring him back to town to be hanged for the murder of her father.

Though the sheriff recommends other men for the job, Mattie Ross is drawn to Cogburn. We first see him in a courtroom, fending off questions for a questionable shooting. The prosecutor tries to get him to admit that he shot an unarmed man, but Cogburn has no patience for such legal technicalities. He shot a man because the man was an outlaw, simple as that. Any discussion that belabors the point is time that could be better spent drinking. When Mattie approaches him after the hearing and offers him fifty dollars to catch Chaney, he dismisses her. He’ll believe her tall tales when he sees the money in front of him. And so she promptly wakes him up the following morning, cash in hand.

Throughout the film, Mattie Ross says that if no one will help her, she’ll shoot and kill Chaney herself. We believe she means it not because she’s a cold-blooded killer but because she speaks with unflinching sincerity. Her vocabulary exceeds that of everyone she comes across and she threatens to make use of her lawyer more often than Cogburn brandishes his pistol. The Coens place a lot of a trust in Steinfeld – who was only thirteen when the movie was filmed – and their faith in the young actress is rewarded. She gets a number of extended close-ups, a choice that might have betrayed a lack of experience in a lesser actress, but Steinfeld rises to the challenge. Her performance is every bit as resolute as her character.

In addition to Bridges, Steinfeld shares screen time with several seasoned veterans. Matt Damon is good as LaBeouf, a Texas Ranger who’s after Chaney for the murder of a Senator. He’s awfully proud of his badge and the film plays for laughs LaBeouf’s failed attempts to act slick. Josh Brolin gets a few scenes’ worth of snarling and looking mean, and the indispensable Barry Pepper appears as the gaunt, almost skeletal outlaw leader “Lucky” Ned Pepper (a role played in the original by Robert Duvall). As is the case in all Coen Bros. films, not a single actor is wasted. Even the briefest of roles deserves some attention, and the film is filled with colorful supporting performances.

When compared to the original, the Coens’ True Grit is paradoxically darker and also funnier than its predecessor. The original has its moments, but mostly suffers from tonal issues. The original True Grit was released in 1969, well after the Golden Age of westerns and despite telling a rather gritty (pardon the pun) story of revenge, the film’s Technicolor landscapes and jubilant score from Elmer Bernstein hark back to that earlier era. Visually, the Coen brothers' take on the story is considerably darker, and they also allow for a little more violence, some of which is even played for darkly humorous effects.

This is also an exceptionally talky western. Bridges garners laughs in some of Cogburn’s more bumbling, drunken moments, but the film’s humor is mostly rooted in its snappy dialogue. The Coen brothers are a remarkably assured team of writer/directors. They’ve carved out their own stylistic niche (Barton Fink, Fargo, and A Serious Man are a few that come to mind as more traditional Coen fare), but they are more than capable of handling a genre flick like this one without losing their distinctive voice.

True Grit is an enthralling execution in an age-old cinematic genre. The western has changed a bit since John Wayne’s days but the genre has proved itself to be an enduring one. In recent years, we’ve seen a handful of westerns make their way to the big screen and while I can’t see a flood of them arriving anytime soon, accomplished features like True Grit show that a one-eyed cowboy and a six-shooter still make for some fine entertainment.

Note: I found it interesting that this violent revenge story, which at one point shows a pair of fingers get chopped off a hand, received a PG-13 rating while The King’s Speech (also in theaters now) got an R rating for an innocent scene that features a brief string of f-bombs. There is nothing particularly offensive in either film, but the disparity reveals just how morally backward those supposed protectors of decency, the MPAA, are.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/07/11

BEST OF THE DECADE - #9: 25th Hour

25th Hour (2002): Dir. Spike Lee. Written by David Benioff and based of his novel, The 25th Hour. Starring: Ed Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Rosario Dawson, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin. Rated R (strong language and some violence). Running time: 135 min.

**NOTE: This review freely discusses the film's ending, so if you do not wish to know what happens before you see it, I would recommend skipping over the second-to-last paragraph.

There’s practically a subgenre in crime films for the redemption film. Redemption films deal less with the actual crimes than with the individuals who commit them and the events that follow. 25^th Hour sounds like it could be a redemption film. A drug dealer, Monty (Ed Norton), has been caught and faces his last day before a seven-year prison sentence. Through the course of the day he talks to his girlfriend (Rosario Dawson) about their future, has lunch his father (Brian Cox), ends relations with the Russian mobsters he worked for and finally meets up with his childhood friends, Jacob and Frank (Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) for one last night out. However, Spike Lee’s film, based on a novel by David Benioff (who also penned the screenplay), does not allow Monty any redemption. The film instead takes the events of his final day and makes them emotionally engrossing by focusing less on plot than on honestly portraying its characters and their situations. Just as life does not wrap things up neatly for us, not all loose ends are tied before the final scene.

Casting a long shadow over the film are the attacks of September 11, 2001. As a New York filmmaker, Spike Lee cannot ignore the events, and sets the film, his first since the attacks, in early 2002 as Americans begin to move on and live their lives again. The opening titles make this expressly clear, featuring beautiful shots of the New York skyline during the initial run of the “Tribute of Light” memorial that cast beams of light into the night sky to symbolize the fallen towers. Later, Lee presents us with a chilling shot of Ground Zero as seen from Frank’s apartment window. Lee keeps the wreckage in the shot as Frank and Jacob discuss air pollution in the city following the attack before eventually moving onto the main subject at hand, Monty. Lee acknowledges that 9/11 happened but never calls attention to it so much that it obscures the plot. Just as people did in the months following 9/11, the characters of 25^th Hour continue to live their lives, albeit in a city that has suffered a great loss.

Life in a post-9/11 world is treated again in the memorable “Fuck You” scene that has Monty responding to bathroom graffiti by going off on a cathartic rant that indicts the many races and peoples of New York, his friends, his family and Osama Bin Laden. The scene recalls the racial slur sequence from Lee’s Do the Right Thing but where that scene highlights the film’s racial tensions, this scene focuses on Monty’s personalized anger and hatefulness. Like so many Americans, Monty needs to blame someone for the misery in his life and he points a finger at all the familiar scapegoats until he ultimately turns the rant back onto himself and takes responsibility for his actions.

Ed Norton’s performance in the film is deceivingly restrained, and Norton makes Monty a calm man with deep undercurrents of fear, suspicion and resentment. However, the best performances here come from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper. Hoffman’s committed portrayal to his lonely high school teacher justifies the tangential storyline about an inappropriate relationship with a young student (Anna Paquin), and Pepper, who for years has been an excellent character actor, has something of a breakout role here. His sleazy Wall Street trader disappears into backrooms with waitresses but has an intense loyalty to his friends that comes out in the final scenes.

Brian Cox, who only appears in two scenes, conveys depths of history between father and son. In the devastating final scene, he offers Monty a glimpse of how life might have been and narrates an alternate future for his son. As he drives Monty to the prison he offers to turn off the highway and take the blame for allowing his son to run away. The extended scene that follows is a fantasy of the American dream – moving to the country, opening a business, raising a family – and Lee shoots it in such a way that we’re not sure if the events are actually happening. When the scene cuts back to Monty in the present, the crushing reality of the next seven years sets in. There is no second chance, no redemption. The fantasy remains the lost opportunity of what might have happened if Monty chose to live a better life.

At 135 minutes, the movie might be overlong, and it drags a bit in the middle, but there are moments of greatness here that stand next to Spike Lee’s best work. In the opening scene, Monty saves a dying dog and gives him a home, suggesting the possibility of his own redemption, but by the film’s end, there is no one to save him, no second chance to be had. 25^th Hour makes its characters face reality, and reality, it should go without saying, is rarely kind.

- Steve Avigliano, 2/2/10