The Lone Ranger

Directed by Gore Verbinksi. Starring Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fitchner, Helena Bonham Carter, Ruth Wilson. 149 mins

Johnny Depp was once a brilliant actor who brought heart, intelligence and a quirky unpredictability to his roles. That cinematic artist must still be inside, but latterly Depp has transmogrified into something else entirely. We could handle a dreadlocked drunkard buccaneer, a bewigged androgynous confectioner and a flamboyant bipolar milliner. Fine. Just about. But a face-painted pidgin-English-speaking Native American? It is a bridge too far.
Cast – or rather mis-cast – in the iconic role of Tonto, Depp tramples on the legacy of Jay Silverheels, the actor who portrayed the native American brave in The Lone Ranger television series from 1949 to 1957. In doing so, Silverheels changed the status of Native Americans in Hollywood – one might have hoped irrevocably. No so, it turns out. Doubtless Depp meant well – but the effect of his taking the part is obvious. A Native American actor has been deprived of the job. And not even an on-song Johnny Depp could have effectively carried off the patois.
Armie Hammer plays The Lone Ranger. Sensing, perhaps, that Hammer – though eminently likeable – is not leading man material, director Gore Verbinksi throws in a series of extraneous subplots to complicate things.
It’s impossible to guess what the film’s intended target audience might be. The comic interludes are slapstick; meanwhile, the violence is decidedly not kid-friendly. While the cinematography is mostly lovely, the steam-train action sequences are unnecessarily repetitive. The political intentions are praiseworthy: the questioning of all-American values is clear. But then there’s that redface...