{"id":36526,"date":"2013-07-12T08:12:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-12T15:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/?p=36526"},"modified":"2013-07-12T10:14:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T17:14:38","slug":"rethink-reviews-lone-ranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/2013\/07\/12\/rethink-reviews-lone-ranger\/","title":{"rendered":"ReThink Reviews: Lone Ranger"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"inline-playlist playlist\" title=\"\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/download\/20130712Walmart\/2013_07_12_loneranger_kim.mp3\">Listen to this segment <\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n<p><a href =\"http:\/\/www.rethinkreviews.net\"><img decoding=\"async\" align=right width=55% src=\"\/home\/graphics\/rethink_reviews_small.jpg\" alt=\"Rethink Reviews\" \/><\/a><strong>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong>  <\/p>\n<p><em>Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em>  <\/p>\n<p> Read his reviews online at <a href=\"http:\/\/ReThinkReviews.net\">ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim\">www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews\">twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews&#8217; theme song is by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/restaurantmusic\">Restavrant<\/a>.    <\/p>\n<p><strong>LONE RANGER<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Disney\u2019s remake of \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019 made just $29 million on its opening weekend against a budget over $215 million, and not for nothing. Despite its beautiful widescreen cinematography filmed across six western states, \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019 has a lot of problems, including a two-and-a-half-hour runtime, an uneven tone, and graphic violence that stretches the boundaries of its PG-13 rating. But first, there\u2019s the question many are asking: in a new era of racial sensitivity, will \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019\u2019s faithful American Indian sidekick Tonto finally get a fair shake?<\/p>\n<p>The Tonto of the original \u2018Lone Ranger\u2019 radio and TV shows embodied the Noble Savage, a caricature demonstrating that so-called \u201cprimitive\u201d brown people could behave with honor. In fact, when we first meet the elderly Tonto in 1933 in the new film, he\u2019s in a Wild West display labeling him as \u201cthe Noble Savage\u201d. But now, Johnny Depp (who plays Tonto and claims to be part Cherokee or Creek) is given top billing ahead of Armie Hammer, who plays the principled lawyer John Reid who eventually becomes \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Tonto in 2013 is no sidekick, nor is he particularly noble, but is instead a bit of a weirdo who only pairs with Reid because they share the goal of tracking down Bruce Cavendish, an outlaw and Indian killer (played by William Fichtner) who murders six Texas Rangers, including Reid\u2019s brother (and presumably Reid as well) in an ambush. When Tonto finds the bodies and sees that Reid is still alive, he concludes that Reid is a \u201cspirit walker\u201d brought back from the dead by a white spirit horse, who becomes \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019\u2019s trusty steed, Silver. It\u2019s Tonto who unwittingly gives birth to \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019 legend, telling Reid to wear the iconic mask and keep his survival a secret.<\/p>\n<p>Tonto is driven by revenge and madness, not friendship or devotion, and mostly looks down on Reid, who is portrayed more as a fish-out-of-water city slicker than a heroic cowboy. However, we later learn that this madness, which is mostly played for laughs as goofy eccentricity, was born from a horrific, violent tragedy, a good example of the jarring violence and uncertain tone that plagues the film.<\/p>\n<p>While \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019 was made by much of the team that made the PG-13 yet family-friendly \u2018Pirates of the Caribbean\u2019 films, make no mistake \u2014 \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019 is very, sometimes needlessly violent, especially early in the film, where the number of chest-exploding bullet wounds reminded me of Quentin Tarantino\u2019s \u2018Django Unchained\u2019. Maybe I\u2019ve gotten soft from all the mass shootings over the past few years, but I\u2019ve lost the taste for seeing innocent people and lawmen being graphically gunned down, and young kids who\u2019ve had the grim reality of school shootings forced upon them may not react well to seeing so much innocent blood shed, including not one, but two massacres of Comanche Indians. I\u2019d guess that a studio with less political pull than Disney would not have gotten a PG-13 rating.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, and sometimes seconds apart, we\u2019re expected to laugh at things like Silver drinking whiskey or wearing a cowboy hat while perched in a tree, some bit of odd couple silliness or bickering between Reid and Tonto, or some cute but carnivorous rabbits who seem to be a prelude to a more supernatural sequel which will now most likely never come. And by the time the William Tell Overture kicks in, music now synonymous with \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019 and campy chase scenes, you\u2019ll feel like you\u2019ve been watching pieces of three wildly divergent interpretations of the same legend made for different audiences.<\/p>\n<p>But while it\u2019s not enough to save what will go down as Disney\u2019s second huge money-loser after 2012\u2019s \u2018John Carter\u2019, \u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019 deserves credit for making Tonto a full character equal to John Reid, as well as emphasizing the greed, cruelty, and broken treaties used to take American Indians\u2019 rightful land, as well as their lives. And while some may see this as a spoiler, during the closing credits, you\u2019ll be treated to a beautiful shot of the aged Tonto hobbling through the breathtaking and iconic Monument Valley, a silent acknowledgement that for all the indignities suffered by Tonto, the Native Americans who played him, and American Indians in general, Tonto finally gets to return to his home, on his own and on his own terms.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The Lone Ranger\u2019 is rated PG-13 and is in theaters now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rethink-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36529,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36526\/revisions\/36529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}