Rango is a trippy, bizarre, uneven, but ultimately worthwhile tribute to the Western. Like the best parodies, it provides the thrill and excitement of the real thing while adding generous helpings of self-referential humor, and like the worst parodies it lacks depth and the desperate dive for one more joke occasionally sucks the life out of the story.
The story deals with a pet chameleon (Johnny Depp) who falls out of the back of his owner’s car on the interstate outside Las Vegas and wanders into a dying old-western town called Dirt, where the citizens are struggling to survive a punishing drought. Once there, he assumes the identity of “Rango,” a wandering gunslinger from ‘the far west’ and, via a combination of coincidence and bravado, winds up being appointed sheriff by the mayor (Ned Beatty) and charged with discovering the source of the town’s water problem.
It’s a fairly familiar set-up: the story is a little like The Shakiest Gun in the West or The Three Amigos with only one protagonist. The fun comes from watching Rango improvise and con his way through crisis after crisis, while slowly developing into a true hero. Depp gives an energetic performance, not only vocally but also by providing the movement of the character, and he hasn’t been this much fun to watch since the first Pirates movie; strutting, blustering, panicking, and deadpanning for all he’s worth. One particularly amusing scene has Rango, desperately thirsty, drink a whole day’s worth of the town’s reduced water supply to illustrate why the citizens have to remain calm and conserve their water.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the film, at least for nature buffs like me, is that the animals all pretty much look like animals: anthropomorphized, but not as much as in most films. Rango himself has the bulging eyes, flat face, and curly tail of a real chameleon, and the rest of the cast are basically just animals dressed up in old-west clothing: fur, scales, bug-eyes, beaks, feathers, and all. It’s fun to try and spot the various species (all of which actually live in the Mojave desert) among the background characters and match them to the typical western figures.
Once past their design, however, the characters don’t offer much; most of them don’t even get names in the film. Still, though the characters mostly never rise above clichés, they’re fun clichés and since this is a parody I suppose we really shouldn’t expect much more. Basically, they hit the note we want from them, and that’s usually enough. There’s Beans (Isla Fisher), the rancher’s daughter/desert iguana love interest, who is your standard western tomboy and has an amusing running gag where she freezes when stressed (she also is notable for the very Australian Fisher’s perfect Western accent). Then there’s Priscilla, the desert mouse girl (Abigail Breslin), who doesn’t really have a lot to do, but is cute and amusingly blood-thirsty (“Can I have your boots when you’re dead?”), Bad Bill (Ray Winstone), the Gila Monster thug, Roadkill (Alfred Molina), the pilgrim armadillo, Wounded Bird (Gil Birmingham), the Native-American raven who gets some particularly great lines (“Ah, I see you’re communing with the spirits.” “No. I’m molting. It means I’m ready to mate.”), and Balthazar (Henry Dean Stanton), the mole patriarch of a large hillbilly clan of moles and prairie dogs. Again, most of these characters don’t really have a lot to add to the proceedings, but they’re all pretty fun to be around and most get at least one great moment.
The best character in the film, by far, is Rattlesnake Jake, played with gusto by Bill Nighy (who, like Fisher, affects a pitch-perfect American accent). Jake is the evil gunslinger called in to deal with the new hero (rather like Jack Palance’s character in Shane), but he stands out as particularly memorable both for his great character design and the juicy dialogue Nighy gets to spout (“I’m gonna fill you so full o’ holes your guts’ll be linked in lead!”). Nearly every time Jake opens his mouth is memorable, from his introductory monologue to his final threat, and made even more so by the spectacular choreography they get out of his serpentine body. Jake weaves around the other characters, swings his head from side-to-side, and coils and uncoils like the shifting tides, constantly in motion. He also manages the difficult task of being actually scary: murderous and unpredictable in addition to being clearly the most powerful character in the story (for one thing he’s about ten times bigger than anyone else), Jake crafts the alarming impression that he’s no ordinary gunslinger. More than one character considers him to be other than mortal (“Jake’s the Grim Reaper. He never leaves without taking a bloomin’ soul!”), and he himself claims the power to take souls to Hell. But he also has surprising depth to him, more so than pretty much any of the other characters; he’s merciless and evil, but has a strict code of honor and can recognize and respect a worthy opponent when he sees one. In the end he even becomes strangely likeable in spite of everything.
Really, Rattlesnake Jake is such a great villain that he almost makes the film worth seeing just for his sake. He’s one of the most vivid and memorable animated bad-guys in recent memory (trying to think of other villains from the past decade I’d set alongside him, all I can come up with are Lotso Huggin Bear from Toy Story 3, the Other Mother from Coraline, and Syndrome from The Incredibles).
But Jake unfortunately doesn’t have a lot of screen time (though perhaps he wouldn’t be as interesting if he did). The main villainous role of the film is taken by the mayor, played by Ned Beatty as a soft-spoken, but nastily corrupt politician with his own plans for the town. His evil plot, refreshingly, is actually fairly subdued and the crimes he commits are all reasonable extensions of his plan, rather than simply to show how evil he is (indeed, at one point he tries unsuccessfully to restrain Jake from a particularly vicious act). The Mayor is a much more generic figure than Jake, but he’s at least a credible bad-guy, particularly in how he both uses and underestimates Rango…and Jake.
There is a lot of action in this movie, and for the most part is remarkably well done, with a creative energy sadly missing from most movies. Surprisingly enough, the film actually paces itself with these scenes, taking the time to carefully set up its big set pieces and allowing the tension to build before the action suddenly explodes (literally in one scene). A climactic duel is particularly good in this regard, with even the background music stopping so that all we hear are the footsteps and jingling spurs of the two opponents.
This is a movie clearly made by and for people who love movies. It’s stuffed almost to bursting with references, nods, and allusions to classic cinema, sometimes having so many at once that it’s almost hard to list them all. One big action set-piece contains allusions to Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Stagecoach, Apocalypse Now, and Deliverance all at once (gloriously, it features ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ being played on banjo).
Of course, it’s more a comedy than anything else, and the jokes work, for the most part. Rango’s slapstick and pratfalls are pretty funny at first, but they’re allowed to continue too far into the story, beyond when he should have grown beyond them. His inventive lies and cons to maintain his identity, however, remain funny pretty much throughout, as do the simply odd townsfolk (“I found a human spinal column in my fecal matter once”). The singly funniest bit in the film, though, is Rango’s meeting with Bad Bill, which features almost no dialogue, but some of the best glaring and panicked improvisation you’ll ever see.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the Greek Chorus owl mariachi band which provides both music and commentary on the proceedings. They could have stood to be in the film a bit more, since they’re one of the most entertaining aspects about the movie, lending it a real ‘legend’ feel while getting off some great jokes (mostly revolving around their eagerness for Rango to die).
The animation is simply gorgeous, with the beauty of the American Southwest on full display; red sands, rock-formations, cacti and all. The characters themselves, as noted, all look like real animals, and every scale, hair, and feather is rendered in rich detail (sometimes to the point of slight grotesquery). The water animation is also particularly good; the scene where the mayor sensually sips down a glass of ‘vintage rainwater’ is almost guaranteed to make you thirsty.
So much for the good. Now the flaws. In the first place, the story never quite gels. The elements are all in place, and the plot really is pretty good, but somehow key details are skated over and remain obscure. The Mayor’s plan is clear and clever enough, but how he managed it and how Rango knew how to foil it remain unclear. Likewise the murder of one character remains unsolved: it’s clear that the mayor had him killed, but why and how are never established; the subplot just kind of drops out of the picture with no real resolution.
What’s more, the relationships in the film don’t really work. The characters are fun enough, but, as noted, not many emerge as real characters. Rango’s key relationships – with Beans and Priscilla – seem to simply happen without adequate set-up. The romance with Beans, for instance, just kind of starts: one scene she’s seriously doubting his credentials as sheriff, then suddenly they’re sharing a heart-to-heart in front of the moon. They have some chemistry, but it feels like something’s been left out. Priscilla, meanwhile, feels like she should be the kid the hero cares about and lets down, but she doesn’t have a lot of lines and never really seems to care too much about Rango up until the end; most of her interactions with him revolve around dispassionately predicting his death. Again, it feels like scenes were cut out and the audience was trusted to fill in the gaps themselves. There’s some nice comradery among Rango’s posse, but it never makes the leap to actual relationships among characters who matter.
With regard to themes, the film makes some gesture towards the meaning of heroism, identity, legend vs. fact, loneliness and so on, but most of them never really pan out. The movie doesn’t really have a lot to say about heroism, for instance, and the question of legend vs. fact is only briefly alluded to. The loneliness theme, likewise, is pretty much just brought up once or twice, but never has much payoff since, as noted, the relationships get the short shift. There’s an effective moment where Rango tries to reconnect with his lost life of solitude, but nothing really comes of it.
The question of Identity gets a bit more to it, with Rango realizing he “could be anyone” and crafting a false identity to get ahead, before changing to fit the identity he’s chosen. When Rango at one point protests that the townsfolk need a hero, he gets told “then be a hero.” I like the call to step up and do what needs to be done, and there is some meat on the idea, with Rango slowly growing into his role as sheriff to the point where he honestly seems competent in the job (as one character notes “[he’s] been playing the hero so long he’s begun to believe it”). I also like how, when it comes down to it, it’s Rango himself who makes the final decision that being a hero “is who I am,” with all that implies. The story of the impersonator who ends up truly becoming what he pretended to be is a venerable storyline, and it’s done decently enough here. In the end the film correctly implies that being a hero, or anything else really, ultimately comes down to choice: to how you decide you will behave.
In the end, Rango must, in a sense, ‘die’ to himself, make a final end to his old, false way of life, in order to become something more. This all is good and fairly well done. The problem, though, is that it feels like he makes a little too much progress too fast. All of a sudden Rango has the guts to stand up to Rattlesnake Jake when he had been sent packing mere hours earlier (another problem is that earlier it was established that Dirt was a ‘day’s journey’ from the highway, and yet Rango makes the trip in one night, then manages a considerable distance further the next morning, a visit to the mole clan, and still makes it back in time for a duel at noon the next day).
The film also makes the mistake of going for jokes beyond the point where they would be appropriate. For instance, after Rango’s rebirth as a real hero, we still get a couple instances of him acting the idiot coward. These either should have been cut or it should have been made clearer how much was put on: as it stands it just feels like his heroics might be just another act, which robs them of some of their grandeur (not all of it, though, since there are only a couple such moments). They’re not bad jokes; they’re just out of place at that point of the story.
Basically, the film feels rushed at times, as though it’s trying frantically to squeeze another classic western trope into its retinue. The whole murder-mystery subplot, for instance, really adds little to the film and, as noted, just kind of peters out with not resolution. Likewise, the mole clan feels like a story detour: just something to give them an excuse to form a possum…er, posse and get out of town for a while. The whole climax, meanwhile, feels like it’s trying to cram too much into too short a time.
There’s also a rather weird take on religion in the film, with the characters on one hand clutching Bibles and alluding to Noah, while on the other we get a quasi-revival ‘watering’ scene (which really feels too long and isn’t that funny) and a heartfelt prayer to the “Spirit of the West.” I don’t mind the characters having an odd little religion of their own, but mixing it in haphazardly with Christianity just feels sloppy and cheapens the world of the film.
In the end, these flaws detract from the film, but don’t quite derail it. It still has enough humor, visual interest, and classic western charm to carry it past its mistakes. The energy of Depp’s performance, the innovativeness and precision of the parody, the frenetic and creative action, and the villainous grandeur of Rattlesnake Jake are enough to make the experience worthwhile, even if it’s not as engaging as it might have been.
Rating: 3/5
Recommended for western fans, Depp fans, and those who enjoy a really good villain
Some Favorite Quotes:
Beans: “What can I say? My daddy plum loved baked beans.”
Rango: “You’re lucky he didn’t plum love asparagus.”
Beans: “What are you saying?”
Rango: “Well, I enjoy a hearty good puttanesca myself, but I don’t think a child would appreciate the moniker.”
Rango: “The place I come from, we kill a man before breakfast just to work up an appetite. Then we salt him. Then we pepper him. Then we braise him in clarified butter and then…we eat him!”
Bar patron: “You eat him?”
Rango: “THAT’S WHAT I SAID!”
Rango: “You spend three days in a horse carcass living off your own juices. It’ll change a man.”
Bad Bill: “If I see your face in this town again, I will slice it off and use it to wipe my unmentionables.”
(about Rattlesnake Jake)
Rango: “He’s my brother.”
Buford: “But…he’s a snake and you’re a lizard.”
Rango: “Well, mama had an active social life.”
Balthazar: “So…is something supposed to be happening?”
Rango: “I am open to suggestions.”
Rattlesnake Jake: “See all these people believe your little stories. They think you’re just a stone killer, don’t they? Seems these folk trust you. They think you’re gonna save their little town. They think you’re gonna save their little souls…but we know better, don’t we?”
Beans: “Go to hell!”
Rattlesnake Jake: “Where do you think I come from?”
Rango: “Put her down, Jake.”
Rattlesnake Jake: “Or what, little man? You gonna kill me?”
Rango: “That’s about the size of it.”
Rattlesnake Jake: “You got killer in your eyes, son? I don’t see it.”
Rattlesnake Jake: “Now listen close, you pathetic fraud. This is my town now. If I ever see you again I will take your soul straight down to HELL!”
Rattlesnake Jake: “What was that you said? ‘Pretty soon no one will believe you even existed!’”
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