12/24/2022 0 Comments Fear and loathing in las vegas rangoIt's fitting, then, that Rango is the role-playing Chameleon With No Identity. "Rango" is most certainly an ode to the spaghetti Western as much as to Hitchcock, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Verbinski - like Comic Riffs - misspent part of his TV-glued youth eating Pop Tarts while watching not only Kim Novak, but also Leone's Man With No Name. And its "Nicholson" - or the closest thing to it - is the serape-wearing Clint Eastwood, a links-loving "Spirit of the West" who (spoiler alert) visits Rango like some Oscars-toting Pale Rider beckoning from beyond. "Easy Rider"? Absolutely.)Īlthough more scattershot in its references, "Rango" is equally deft at hitting its targets on twin levels. Nicholson received an Oscar nomination for his stellar performance, but part of the film's brilliance is also the fact it operates perfectly nimbly on two levels: The story unspools as a moving tale of an aging man, but on another level, "Schmidt" is a front-to-back ode to Nicholson's entire career, seemingly referencing with a twist (often subtly) every classic Jack performance. The Alexander Payne film "About Schmidt," as many may recall, is the 2002 film in which Jack Nicholson plays a retired and widowed Omaha actuary who hits the road in a motor home searching for a life he may have squandered. "Rango," in other words, passes what I call the "Schmidt" litmus test. If a spew of old-movie allusions guaranteed greatness - if mere pastiche equalled masterpiece - then every Quentin Tarantino flick would be genius, and an animated film need only hire the manically talented Robin Williams to toss off film quotes like some algorithm on hyper-drive. (A coupla other apparently line-checked films: "Fellowship of the Ring," "Hollywood Shuffle" and "Star Wars" perhaps more than coincidentally, "Rango" was animated by George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic.)īut here's the trick: Verbinski allows the story to flow like agua on its narrative merits, too - "Rango" is sensical even if you have no filmic sensibility. (Including, of course, Verbinski's own "Pirates of the Caribbean" films.) "Rango" is so chock-a-block with "film within a film" talk - is that a "Steamboat Bill Jr." or "North by Northwest" reference whizzing past? - the viewer half-suspects that light improv and on-the-fly rewrites were entirely permitted on this project. "Rango" largely cattle-rustles the prattle from the best. Many of the references are overt, including nods to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "Cat Ballou," "High Plains Drifter," "The Lion King," "Raising Arizona," "Singin' in the Rain," "Vertigo," "High Noon," "True Grit," "The Shakiest Gun in the West" and even Eli Wallach's classic last line to Eastwood in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (from which, as with "Chinatown," "Rango" cribs liberally). The movie allusions fly so fast and nefarious, I was sucking wind (for all I know, it was "Gone With the Wind") by the second reel. To lift (and twist) a line from the animated adventure itself, in other words, it takes two to "Rango." And boy-howdy, when it comes to this cinematic tango, does Verbinski know how to two-step. This is a heartfelt valentine to Hollywood, but such an offering invites a certain big-screen nostalgia from the viewer. And a filmmaker (Gore) seeks a few good savvy viewers who will indulge and appreciate his allusions to everything from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Apocalypse Now" to more Clint Eastwood movies than you can shake a cheroot at. Gore Verbinski has just issued a sounding as distinct as a goose call: If you love film as much as I do, the "Rango" director is signaling, then gird your loins for more purloined cinematic references than you can shake a divining stick at.Īnd with the dearth of scorched-earth water on this "Chinatown"-cribbing desert, a divining rod is perhaps the just-right tool, for this is a film about questing. There will be more afoot, in other words, than sonic silliness. Rango, you scaly devil - you had me at "smuh!"Īs delivered by Johnny Depp, Rango the pet thespian's opening lines, actually, become "Smuh-smuh-smuh- SMUH!" With all his terrarium's a stage, our monologue-happy chameleon is doing vocal warm-ups, yet Depp's eruptive effects are also a pitch-perfect impression of Jack Lemmon's sinus-clearing honking - as the finicky Felix - in Neil Simon's sublime "The Odd Couple."
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