Over the summer, I got a kick out of Johnny Depp's film The Lone Ranger. It wasn't well reviewed by the critics and reportedly did badly at the box office, so clearly I have no taste, and now no shame... Lots of action, stunts, humour, cliches and need for suspension of disbelief - almost a Bond movie set in the Wild West. It features a guy who can't go back home (without a mask anyway), cos the baddies who think he's dead wouldn't rest until he actually was. In the meantime he goes around fighting injustice, greed and corruption, accompanied by native American warrior Tonto (Depp). Of course he has to do it with the William Tell Overture playing in the background (just like 007 does to Monty Norman's tune).
What's more there's the wonderful Helena Bonham Carter as a brothel madam (in a Disney film!), some "knife-work", and a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing railroad boss. Yep, it does indeed appear that Mona was right...
"Mona tried to tell me
To stay away from the train line
She said that all the railroad men
Just drink up your blood like wine."
or there's the great Cat Power cover...
The railroad boss in this film has a grand overarching vision - the advance of technology, bringing distant people and commerce together (and bringing him a major return on his investment, regardless of the price others have to pay).
"Well, your railroad gate, you know I just can’t jump it..."
or there's the country punk version...
or the Eddie Cochran-inspired Flamin' Groovies version
"Well, six white horses that you did promise
Were fin’lly delivered down to the penitentiary
But to live outside the law, you must be honest"
"You are a spirit-walker, a man who has been to the other side and returned, a man who cannot be killed..." (The film has been criticised regarding geographical accuracy - me, I think they might have got the white horse bit wrong - shouldn't it have been a donkey?)
As reviewed in The Telegraph by Robbie Collin, "The Lone Ranger is a grand folly that, in a sane world at least, would never have been made, although I’m really rather glad someone did."
Me too. To be continued...
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