The Lone Ranger (2013)

Justice is What I Seek, Kemosabe.

The amount of awful things I heard about today’s movie made me desperately want to see it.  Not quite enough to see it in theaters, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to see it.  The studio seemed to try to hide the movie under the rug after that, keeping it off the shelves for about 6 months.  Did they not know I was waiting to make fun of it?!  By the time I finally got the opportunity to see it, I had already watched the people over at Schmoe’s Know report that it was the worst and second worst movie of the year, depending on which host you asked.  But you people are here to find the opinion of the host that really matters: ME!!!!!  So what did I think of The Lone Ranger?  You’ll just have to read more words and find out.  Some of those words will be the people that wrote it, whose names are Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio.  Gore Verbinski directed it.  And the movie also starred Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, William Fichtner, Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson, Helena Bonham Carter, James Badge Dale, and Barry Pepper.

A young boy at a circus goes into a Wild West exhibit and sees a statue of an elderly Comanche that seems to come to life to tell the boy a story.  The Comanche reveals himself to be Tonto (Johnny Depp), and starts to tell the boy a story about how he met a lawyer named John Reid (Armie Hammer) while trying to exact his revenge on a man he calls a “wendigo,” but is more commonly referred to as Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner), notorious outlaw.  Butch escapes and John joins his brother Dan’s (James Badge Dale) search party to try to bring him to justice, but a betrayal leads the slaughter of the entire team.  Tonto arrives and gives the bodies a proper burial, only to realize that John survived, if only just.  Tonto decides that John is a “spirit walker” and unable to be killed, which will be very useful in future fights.  Slightly less useful in future fights is a mask that Tonto gets John to wear.  Even less useful is the moniker of “The Lone Ranger” for someone that is eternally accompanied by a partner and a horse.

This was not a great movie, but I would argue that the amount of hatred received by this movie is unjustified.  It’s just a dumb fun movie.  I might be prodded to say that I enjoyed the experience.  For obvious reasons, it felt like a worse version of the worst Pirates of the Caribbean movie (That would be easily the fourth one, On Stranger Tides) set in the Wild West.  It had some simple story, an odd love story, some funny moments, and some okay action.  Not a whole lot to say about the story in general because of its simplicity.  It’s kind of just a double revenge plot and not much more.  I can say some things about the love story though.  John is in love with his brother’s wife and can move in on her without regrets because Dan’s been killed, instantly proving them both to be shitty wife and shitty brother simultaneously.

There were some pretty interesting and spectacular action scenes that I enjoyed in this movie.  The big train scene at the end was pretty interesting, like in the parts where Tonto was climbing up the ladder on the moving train.  The thing that did the most damage to this action sequence was the fact that they used the Lone Ranger music, the William Tell Overture, during the whole scene.  Look, I understand why they did it.  It was an appeasement to people that loved the original … whatever it was.  TV show?  Radio program?  Both?  Who cares?!  I’m not nearly old enough to give a shit.  But I do know that this music sounds a little goofy and dated by today’s standards and I would’ve been much happier with some random metal or orchestra music in that scene.  You could’ve thrown those old people a bone by playing it during the credits or something, but the people old enough to know that music had probably fallen asleep by then.  4:30 pm is way past their bed time.

One of the things that the Schmoe’s boys hated about this movie was Johnny Depp, comparing his goofy characterization to his performance in Pirates of the Caribbean.  I may be way off base here, but I liked his performance in both movies.  I find them funny and entertaining.  So sue me.  You can have all the money I make doing these things for you.  In fact, you already have it all.  I also found his interactions with Silver the horse to be pretty funny.  And Silver was my second favorite character in this movie!  That horse had a good amount of funny moments, like when it licked the scorpions off of the Lone Ranger’s face and when they found Silver standing in a tree for no good reason.  Of course, another part of the problem with this movie is that my second favorite character was a horse and not the person riding it.  Armie Hammer didn’t really make any impression on me.  His portrayal of the Lone Ranger was not nearly as badass as I wanted him to be, and not nearly as badass as someone being portrayed by someone named Armie Hammer.  With a name like that you should be eating lightning and crapping thunder!  Instead he won most of his victories by accident and dumb luck.  He was starting to come into his own as the Lone Ranger in that last action scene, but I had already written this down in my notes by the time I got there.

The Lone Ranger was beaten up pretty hard, but I feel it was unjustified.  Sure the story was unimpressive and the love story seemed all wrong, but there was some okay action scenes and I found Johnny Depp amusing enough to overcome Armie Hammer not living up to the awesomeness of his own name.  This movie would never really warrant a purchase, but I would feel confident recommending that you rent it from RedBox.  It’s worth a dollar.  The Lone Ranger gets “That was supposed to be a warning shot” out of “Something very wrong with that horse.”

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True Grit (2010)

If You Would Like to Sleep in a Coffin, it Would be Alright

Today’s movie was a request by me.  For a while now I’ve talked about Jeff Bridges and how, though I respect him greatly as an actor, the greater majority of the movies I’ve reviewed with him in it seemed very similar in their performances, often resembling his character of The Dude from the Big Lebowski.  But, while I’ve said these things, I’ve usually mentioned them along with a certain movie I’ve seen where his performance had little to nothing in common with The Dude, and that is today’s movie.  It’s also a movie that I believe I originally saw in the theaters and fell completely in love with.  When it came out for purchase, I got it on BluRay and renewed my love for it.  I’ve been putting off my review for no particular reason, but no longer.  The time has come to review the second film adaptation of the novel True Grit, written by Charles Portis, written for the screen and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Elizabeth Marvel, Ed Lee Corbin, Dakin Matthews, Domhnall Gleeson, Leon Russom, and Joe Stevens.

The father of 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is gunned down by one of his hired hands, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), for two California gold chips and a horse.  Her brother being even younger and her mother being unqualified for the task, it falls on Mattie’s shoulders to arrange for the body to be transported back home.  But, when she gets to the town, she sets about the task of revenge.  Realizing that it’s not a top priority for the law to find Chaney, she decides to hire U.S. Marshal Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to seek him out.  He refuses her at first, but when she raises enough money, he relents, even though she demands to accompany him on the task.  But, when Mattie shows up to join Rooster, she finds that he’s already left, having had no intention of allowing her to follow.  She races down to the river to find Rooster on the other side of the river with Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), who is looking for Chaney on another bounty.  Since Rooster has paid the ferryman to keep Mattie on the other side of the river, she hazards the river on horseback to join them.  Rooster and LaBoeuf are not pleased, but the three set off to find Chaney and bring him to justice.

This is such a good movie!  I love the hell right out of this movie.  It’s set itself amongst my favorite westerns, and even amongst my favorite movies.  Though I’m not sure where it came from, I’ve had a predisposition for loving westerns for as long as I can remember.  So when a really well-written one comes along (which I find fairly rare nowadays), I love it that much more.  And this movie is, indeed, well-written.  The story is really interesting, often funny, and heavy with some badassdom or, as they would call it, “grit”.  And, in my opinion, the movie dwarfs the original movie in every conceivable way.  I liked this version of True Grit so much that I decided I should buy the original, sight unseen.  You can imagine my disappointment.  The original seemed to have very little respect for the source material (as best I can gather from the source material’s Wikipedia page) and changed parts of the story with great emotional impact at will.  But it seems like this Portis guy knew what he was doing when he put pen to paper, because the much more accurate new movie renders the original movie unwatchable.  The dialogue that the Coen brothers bring to the movie is very endearing, though I did find it to be in poor taste that Mattie decides to name her horse “Little Blackie” right in front of the little blackie stable boy, but perhaps that’s just my racism reading things the wrong way.  The action that they bring to the movie is also very satisfying, and pretty great in a very real way.  They build up a lot of tension in the interrogation scene when Rooster is casually trying to get information out of two guys they come across in a cabin, and the ensuing gun fight was pretty cool and very realistic.  I really liked the courageous ride that Rooster takes against the gang at the end of the movie as well, especially the part where a guy gets shot off his horse and smashes his face on a rock for good measure.  I have conflicted feelings about the ending of the movie though.  ::SPOILER ALERT::  I thought the part of Rooster courageously riding to get Mattie to medical attention was very emotional and fantastic, but the bit after that confuses my feelings.  It was sad that an aged Mattie was trying to reconnect with Rooster but finds him dead by the time she gets to him.  It was nice that she gets his body moved closer to her so she can visit him, but sad again that she lost her arm and never married because she was too business minded.  I thought the ending was great, but a part of me always wants the ending to be a happy one, and you don’t get that here.  The original movie breaks from the book to give the audience the happy ending they usually want, but I don’t like that they did that.  So you can see how conflicted I am about this.  I don’t like them changing the ending to appease me, and the ending was fantastic and emotional, but that nagging part of me always wants that happy ending.  ::END SPOILERS::

Contending admirably with the high quality of the script is the performances in the movie.  Every single one of them is enjoyable.  Hailee Steinfeld is the real breakout performance of this movie, even amongst heavy competition.  No one has seen anything from this girl before this movie which just makes her that much more impressive.  She delivers heavy and complicated dialogue as if she’s smarter than everyone in the room, and in most occasions she is.  Take, for instance, when she’s negotiating over the sale of some horses with Colonel Stonehill (Dakin Matthews) and she completely outwits him.  She also delivers some real emotion to further impress.  And she was not above showing the innocence of youth, like when she tried to break the tension caused by a fight between LaBoeuf and Rooster by offering to tell a story by the campfire.  I envy her for her early showings of talent, but I assume I was not given such ability because of how heavily I would rub it in the faces of all of my peers at school.  “Look what I’ve accomplished while you guys were doing each other’s hair and talking about Justin Bieber!  I was nominated for an Academy Award!”  Although, for some reason she was nominated for supporting actress.  What’s that about?  As awesome as Bridges was in this movie, this wasn’t the Rooster show.  Mattie was the main character of the movie.  And Jeff Bridges was indeed awesome.  John Wayne fans must be pissed ‘cause this guy makes the Duke look like a pile of duke.  He plays Rooster very funny, intelligent even though he’s semi-constantly drunk, absolutely heroic in a part or two but still very flawed in others, and outright awesome.  My favorite thing about the character was that he wasn’t a cliché.  Most heroes in western movies are the best at something.  They’re the best tracker, they’re the toughest, they’re the most heroic, they’re the best shot or the quickest draw.  Rooster was none of these things.  He just had grit, and he was more awesome for it.  Matt Damon was also very good as LaBoeuf.  You dislike him for the bulk of the movie because of his ego and the vague air of pedophilia he gives off in relation to Mattie.  In the middle, he’s more of an amusement because of his nearly severed tongue.  But, by the end, he’s also a very heroic character.  Josh Brolin is also pretty great.  He’s this sinister character throughout the movie, but only in what people are saying about him because you haven’t actually met him yet.  When you meet him, he comes off as an idiot and in no way intimidating.  He’s almost laughable in how put upon he is.  But when he decides it’s in his best interest to rid himself of Mattie, he makes an awesome turn from almost goofy to pretty intimidating.

True Grit is an amazing accomplishment of a movie.  Fantastic story, sharp dialogue, and some amazing performances.  This movie has all of the ingredients to be considered one of the greatest westerns ever, and it’s already become one of my favorite movies ever.  And the original that was already regarded as a classic becomes a mess in comparison.  I don’t only recommend you watch this movie; I want you to watch this movie.  It’s not only worth a rental; it’s worth going out and purchasing it outright.  Go find it and watch it.  You can thank me later.  True Grit gets “Well, if it ain’t loaded and cocked, it don’t shoot” out of “If them men wanted a decent burial, they should have gotten themselves kilt in summer.”

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