AT THE MOVIES

  David Begelman

“The Lone Ranger:” We Bombed, Kemosabe

MGM’s latest fiasco “The Lone Ranger” is a stunning example of what by now has become a tinseltown posture. It’s the failure to make the distinction between artistic merit and box office success. Movie studios and their allies in the media trenches, film critics, virtually conspire to blur it. And they’re pretty successful at the ruse. That’s because film critics, who fancy themselves le dernier mot in matters artistic, frequently function as nothing more than press agents for production companies.

When you get right down to it, “The Lone Ranger,” dud that it is, isn’t a hell of a lot worse than other blockbusters: “The Avengers,” “Dark Knight Rising,” “Man of Steel,” “Iron Man 3,” and so on—ad infinitum, it seems. And we’re already on a fast track of having “Wolverine” and “Thor” inflicted on us soon.

The trick is to produce a multi-million dollar vehicle laced with extravagant technical effects. Then throw them in your face, as though stars in colorful costumes masquerading as macho types show you what entertainment is all about. After which pundits on occasion can go on to bitch and moan that the product hasn’t met “artistic” expectations when it bombs at the box office.

“The Lone Ranger” may be a useful example of the trend, but it’s in a lot of company. When a film brings in the big bucks, where is all the critical commentary about how, despite its financial success, it sucks from a purely critical point of view? Well, the bad financial news about MGM’s latest venture is out. “The Lone Ranger” cost $225 million to produce. It earned an embarrassing $29 million through July 4^th.

 Something went terribly wrong, true. But why make the mistake of assuming it’s because it wasn’t up to the usual “artistic” standards? What blockbuster was? “Citizen Kane” and “The Wizard of Oz,” to be sure. But that’s a bygone era when many films had plenty of artistic clout. Today, you’ve got to go low budget or indy to come up with something that touches you. For relatively recent flicks, try Yaron Zilberman’s “A Late Quartet,” Mona Achache’s “The Hedgehog,” Behn Zeitlin’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild” or Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” for starters.

If Gore Verbinski’s new treatment of the masked rider of the plains in the thrilling days of yesteryear isn’t too much worse than the folderal manufactured under the Marvel Comics franchise, it’s still straining to be the most inane film of the season, thanks to script writers Justin Haythe and Ted Elliott. The two have woven a story so patchy, arbitrary, and just plain silly, you can’t be sure whether sections of it are intended to update characters once popularized by Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels, or else contrive to make bad Buster Keaton-like scenarios the order of the day. And its stabs at adolescent humor are painful to watch.

Even the cast is a mixed affair. Armie Hammer is the Lone Ranger, a hero who for the most part wanders through the film as a naïve and idealistic lawyer, completely out of his element in the Wild West. He leans on his faithful Indian companion to rescue him from impossible situations, and appears to be illustrating a coming-of-age saga of a nice boy from the East who is having his eyes gradually opened to reality.

William Fichtner is a villain who is a composite of all the grubby and distasteful elements of a monster right out of a nightmare. And, as if to lend a touch of class to the goings-on, the Brits Tom Wilkinson and Helena Bonham Carter are imported to do their thing. Wilkinson turns in a mediocre performance as the film’s master villain, a railroad magnate who rises to power through the simple expedient of shooting one of his corporate partners at a board meeting. Carter is a pasty, flaming red-haired heroine with an engraved porcelin leg housing a machine gun to dispose of the bad guys. The role seems to have been inspired by her portrayal of the equally outlandish Mme. Thénardier of the Parisian demi-monde in the film version of “Les Miserables.”

Indian raids, trainwrecks, ambushes, murders, and assorted mayhem are filmed with all the subtlety of a sledge hammer. After all the amateurish antics, we are left with the unsurprising hunch that the film could not have been made by adults—although of course it was. Its only redeeming feature is some stunning vistas on location shots in Utah.

As for Johnny Depp as Tonto, it’s a long way from “Edward Scissorhands,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” or even “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Ninth Gate.” Sic transit gloria mundi. His faithful Indian companion is first seen as an immobile figure in a diorama reminiscent of the ones in New York City’s Museum of Natural History. He comes to life to dialogue with a little boy dressed up as a cowboy, and the movie tale—for what it is—unfolds in a series of flashbacks. At the end of the film Tonto is seen as elderly and bow-legged, trudging off into the desert. It’s not a career change, Kemosabe. It’s osteoporosis.