I often find it to be the case that movies dominated by a single superlative performance -- “Ray,” “Capote,” “Darkest Hour” more recently -- tend to suffer as a whole. When one actor’s in every single scene, and everything is always about him, then the storytelling can often devolve into a series of encounters, all of which are designed to give the main performer another chance to act the hell out of a scene.
I feel that way about “Lucky,” which is destined to be remembered as the swan song for legendary character actor Harry Dean Stanton. He passed away at age 91 a few months ago, decades of credits of kooky, mesmerizing characters under his belt. Nearly always the supporting actor, he finally got a chance to be the lead, and he knocked the hell out of it.
(Though I should note Stanton still has one more film in the can coming out in 2018.)
It’s about a man, Lucky, who is outwardly much like Stanton himself: ancient, respected but regarded with a sort of distance by others. Living alone on the edge of a tiny city out west somewhere, each of his days bleeds very much into the next.
He exercises, makes cryptic phone calls to someone during which he picks a word out of the dictionary, then puts on his cowboy boots to amble into town to buy milk and cigarettes -- seemingly all he subsists on -- followed by a drop-in at the watering hole where he hobnobs with the other denizens.
The supporting cast is interesting, but as I said they flit in and out of the frame only so much as they can help Lucky along in his journey. Beth Grant plays the grandstanding owner of the bar, and James Darren plays her guy, who puts off a Vegas vibe. Ed Begley Jr. plays the town doctor, astonished at Lucky’s fine health despite smoking like a chimney. Tom Skerritt turns up as another veteran, with whom Lucky trades reminisces.
David Lynch, still doing that strange, robotic, hard-of-hearing line reading that he always does, plays another aging fellow with a turtle problem. (Blunt but true: if it weren’t for his directing career, nobody would call upon Lynch as an actor.) Ron Livingston is a local attorney, to whom Lucky takes an instant dislike.
The screenplay by Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja approaches Lucky sideways. We learn very little autographical information about him -- he was in the Navy, never married, but apparently was in love once -- yet we feel like we get to know him down to the ground. Lucky is defiantly atheist, yet as the end approaches he has many questions and concerns about what comes after.
The directorial debut of John Carroll Lynch, himself a noted character actor, “Lucky” is more concerned with raising difficult questions than dashing off easy answers.
Bonus features are slim but decent. They include two segments with Stanton, “A Few Words from Harry Dean Stanton” and “Behind the Scenes: Harry Dean Stanton’s Final Film Take,” along with interviews with Lynch and the screenwriters.
“Lucky” is not so much a story as a spare character study. The film will be forever remembered as the last starring role of the great character actor Harry Dean Stanton, whose movie career didn’t really take off until he was in his 40s.
Still, that was enough for a half-century of indelible roles, punctuated by Stanton’s signature sharp, gaunt visage – like a matinee idol who’d been sucked on a bit by a vampire – and languorous, offbeat line delivery.
No matter what character he was playing, Stanton never seemed in a hurry to get where he was going.
I doubt there’s ever been a more distinctly Harry Dean Stanton role than the one he has in “Lucky,” playing the titular character, a 90-something cowpoke who saunters around his sleepy little Western town, always up to not much at all. With his sad, droopy eyes and battered straw hat, Lucky is like the town’s resident mascot.
A creature of habit, he patters through the routine of his days: calisthenics, a walk into town for coffee at the local diner, a stop at the corner market for cigarettes or milk – all he consumes, as far as we can tell – more moseying, TV game shows, his evenings spent with a Bloody Mary at one of the two watering holes in town, where the same creatures come out every night.
Lucky used to go to the other bar, but got thrown out – or walked out, in his telling – for lighting up indoors long after that sort of thing became verboten.
A prideful loner, Lucky was in the Navy during World War II, and we don’t really know what he’s been doing in the 70-odd years since. Never married, no kids he can lay claim to, no pets, no responsibilities, no close friendships. He makes odd, one-sided phone calls to someone who appears to be a pal, mostly picking words out of the dictionary and discussing them.
It may not seem like much of a life, but it’s one Lucky holds to with fierce conviction. This is the sort of man who will challenge a fellow half his age to a fistfight if he thinks the guy is taking advantage of a friend.
When he sustains an inexplicable fall in his home, the wind goes out of Lucky’s sails. The doctor (Ed Begley Jr.) says he’s in exceptional health – something he can’t explain given Lucky’s pack-a-day habit. Just getting older, he shrugs. We get the sense Lucky could handle a dire pronouncement, the C-word or such. But just not knowing vexes him to his core.
“Lucky” is really a story of new beginnings. Is Lucky preparing for the end, looking for answers about the meaning of life, or trying to break out of his shell? Perhaps a mix of all three.
The creative team are all filmmaking veterans trying out new roles. John Carroll Lynch, another noted character actor, steps behind the camera for the first time as a director. Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja have also worked as actors and crew members, now trying their hands at screenwriting.
I do wish “Lucky” had a little more narrative momentum than it does. The movie plays out mostly as just a series of encounters between Lucky and other townsfolk. Beth Grant plays Elaine, the matron of his bar, who likes being the center of attention. James Darren plays her main squeeze, who gets a nice speech of his own. David Lynch plays another odd oldster with a runaway tortoise.
Tom Skerritt gets the best supporting part, a small bit as a fellow veteran Lucky connects with at a diner. He gets a 4- or 5-minute speech that’s right up there with Quint’s U.S.S. Indianapolis soliloquy from “Jaws.”
“Lucky” is not a movie about an old man who goes on a journey, but one who comes to take the first few steps. Though I wish we could’ve followed him a little further down that path, it’s a fitting coda for Stanton, who gets to ride off -- or, rather, amble -- into the sunset on the back of one of his best roles.
There is a purity to "Two-Lane Blacktop" that grabs you like fat tires gripping a hot asphalt road.
On the surface it is seemingly the barest of trifles, a drag-racing movie in which the two main characters literally have no existential identity beyond their roles as Driver and Mechanic -- the only names ever given them, and only then in the end credits.
Like slavering wolves with but one or two primordial imperatives constituting their entire behavioral makeup, they tool from town to town in a souped-up 1955 Chevy 150, searching for chumps to fleece in wagered side-by-side sprints. That's the whole movie.
Yet the film, a cult classic that barely made a ripple in the box office or pop culture of its day, often gets spoken about in tones bordering on reverential. Back in 1971 Esquire magazine named it the "film of the year" -- without even bothering to wait for the bloom of spring, at that.
Many people consider the movie the unsung triad of great counter-culture road pictures of the time, along with "Easy Rider" and "Vanishing Point." It is talked about frequently, and has received a handsome Criterion Collection restoration and video release.
Directed by B-movie denizen and Roger Corman mentee Monte Hellman, "Two-Lane Blacktop" was written by Rudy Wulitzer over a frenetic four-week period. He was an underground nobody at the time, but went on to pen notable films like "Pat Garrett and & Billy the Kid" and "Little Buddha," and even contributed to the Oscar-winning script for "Coming Home," though he did not get a screen credit or a statuette.
Wurlitzer, who admitted he knew little about cars, threw out almost everything from a first draft by Will Corry, diving into motoring magazines and hanging out with gearheads to soak up the culture. He kept the simplicity of Corry's three main characters: Driver, Mechanic and The Girl (Laurie Bird) and added to them G.T.O., an older man played by Warren Oates who starts out as an adversary and becomes their companion.
There is very little dialogue, and most of what is spoken is by G.T.O., a born liar cruising cross-country in a brand-new flaming yellow Pontiac GTO, who constantly picks up hitchhikers, supplying each one with a different backstory about who he is and how he got the car. In different fables he is a test pilot, television producer, etc., but always a braggart and back-slapper.
G.T.O. wears an extravagant outfit, complete with cravat and slip-on loafers, that looks like a precursor to the disco-era leisure suit. He keeps a full martini travel kit in the trunk.
(A note on nomenclature: the iconic Pontiac muscle cars are GTOs, sometimes cheekily expanded to "Gas, Tires & Oil" -- the three things they prodigiously consumed -- or simply "Goats." But the film's credits include periods, most likely an error on Wurlitzer's part, and have become an established part of movie lore. So I'll use them here.)
G.T.O. doesn't actually know very much about cars. He proudly enumerates for a hitchhiker all the particulars of the model, including acceleration times and such, then admits he got all the information out of the owner's manual. He's a poser who views other hot-rodders with disdainful confidence, a self-proclaimed king of the road who's never actually shut anyone down.
"Performance and image, that's what it's all about," he drawls, innocent of embarrassment for these words.
Driver and Mechanic are his polar opposite. They are young, stoic, long-haired, T-shirted, terse. They don't imbibe or toke up. They talk about nothing but the condition of their vehicle and racing strategy. They travel along Route 66, generally eastward, finding people to race and bet against. It's strongly implied they have never lost.
Their car is the antithesis of flashy, all business: primer gray paint that blurs into the road, a functional but boxy hood scoop for ramming air into the carb, sheet metal shaved and bumper stripped to cut down weight. It has no radio or heater, only rollbars in the back, and the heavy glass windows have been replaced with sliding plastic barriers.
With a mammoth big-block 454 cubic inch plant -- that's about 7.4 liters in today's parlance, or four times the engine displacement of a new Honda Civic -- paired to a 4-speed gearbox and heavily modified, their '55 Chevy is a stealth warrior, a professional machine disguised to look like a local boy's plaything. To access the engine, Driver and Mechanic have to flick a release near each door corner and together tilt the front end up, fenders and all.
Interestingly, this is the only way in which the two men collaborate on the car itself. Driver will help Mechanic take off the hood, then he studiously strolls away and sits somewhere nearby while the work is performed. Similarly, Mechanic offers no words of advice before a race, and never rides along. Each understands their clearly defined roles, and obeys the self-imposed demarcation as if a biblical directive.
They do talk shop while scouting out opponents, however. Mechanic can tell what another driver has under the hood with a glance and a listen to their exhaust note. Driver is in charge of baiting their prey, sidling up at the local car aficionados' gathering spot, offering praise for another's wheels, then derision, returning a challenge of a $50 race with a demand for $300, knowing the man can't back down in front of his hometown crew.
Driver and Mechanic are both played by famous musicians in their only feature film role. James Taylor (Driver) was just breaking out as a solo act, while Dennis Wilson (Mechanic) was sliding down from the Beach Boys' heyday, on the threshold of a dark decade and early death.
Neither has a scintilla of acting talent. Taylor actually stumbles badly during his character's only notable piece of dialogue, seeming unsure if he should keep going or wait for someone to yell "cut." Yet their blank glances, unmodulated speech and nervy unease in front of the camera actually work to the film's advantage. They're single-minded beasts, unconcerned with social niceties or anything that could distract them from speed, and victory.
The one thing that tries is The Girl. She's a hippie and a roamer who rides along with anyone who will have her. She literally waltzes up and throws her stuff and herself into the back of the '55 while the two men are inside a diner, and upon returning they acquiesce to her presence -- without comment.
Despite her reliance on the kindness of strangers, Girl takes pains to
aim her verbal barbs and astringent energy at whoever's currently providing the lift. In the case of a twosome of benefactors, she tries to set them against each other. Since Driver seems to express the barest of interest in her, she bestows her affections instead on Mechanic.
It is tacitly understood by all that she will provide sex in exchange for transportation, food and shelter. In many ways she is the pair's true spiritual companion. They are devoted only to racing, and their car is the tool to that end. She is only committed to her own freedom and whims, and offering her virtue is the most obvious and replenishable currency. The Chevy and The Girl's body are merely forms of conveyance.
The trio encounters G.T.O. at a gas station, and the boys use the older man's pride to lure him into the ultimate wager: an overland race for "pinks" -- aka pink slips, or ownership of the loser's car. They mail their titles to a post office in Washington D.C., and the first one who gets there, wins all.
The race gradually devolves into a comradely jaunt. They agree on truces for repairs, eating stops and spontaneous races with third parties. G.T.O. pretends to be their manager, The Girl switches between cars as her mood strikes, and eventually it becomes unclear if they're even going to bother finishing the race.
At some point G.T.O. realizes he's clearly out of his class with Driver and Mechanic, and starts to envy and emulate them. Just as Driver drives and Mechanic maintains and The Girl chases her zephyr, G.T.O. is a chameleon who lives for deception and change. We're not sure what he really was before, but self-invention is now his single-minded vocation. He is on a quest to forget himself.
When your goal is ephemeral and ever receding, all you have left is the race itself.
John Hughes' teen movies were bubble gum wrapped in shiny paper, containing a lot of sweet, juicy stuff with a bitter center. He told stories about teenagers not as how society saw them, but as how they saw themselves. He identified with the school misfits, but he understood the cool kids enough that he didn't dismiss their challenges as inconsequential.
The pop music cues, the likeable teen stars, the old-fashioned love triangle plot devices -- he used it all to draw in an audience of young people, ostensibly to entertain them, but really to show them a self-portrait that is flawed and glorious.
"Pretty in Pink" is an imperfect film with a pure heart. After the success of "Sixteen Candles" and "The Breakfast Club," Hughes cast his personal ginger-haired muse, Molly Ringwald, in perhaps his most bleak and ambitious film to date.
I know some people might spit up at seeing "bleak" and "John Hughes" in the same sentence. But strip away the pop songs, the winsome actors and the puppy-dog love story, and the universe in which "PiP" is set is a pretty dreary one.
The school is divided along sharp lines into "richies," over-privileged offspring of wealthy families, and everybody else. The rich kids eat lunch inside in the cafeteria, while the students who are poor or rough around the edges are relegated to the outdoor rec area. It's self-imposed segregation, and there are people on both sides eager to enforce the invisible lines of division.
Heroine Andie (Ringwald) is the single child of Jack (Harry Dean Stanton), who works itinerantly but whose main vocation is staying in bed and feeling sorry for himself. His wife left him three years ago, and though he puts up a brave face for the daughter he adores, he's drowning. Andie pushes him to find full-time work and a purpose in life.
Andie is smart and, unlike Ringwald's previous roles in Hughes films, not a shrinking violent. When she's picked on my obnoxious richie girls (Kate Vernon and Gina Gershon), she fights back. Lacking funds, Andie makes her own clothes -- the source of the teasing -- with pink included in virtually every outfit.
She has a job working at a hip music store run by Iona, who's about twice Andie's age but acts as her big sister and coach. Iona has a different hairstyle every time we see her, starting with a spiked mohawk and growing more conservative as the movie goes on. She's played by Annie Potts, a charismatic and outgoing presence, virtually unrecognizable from her nerdy role in "Ghostbusters."
Andie's perpetual wingman is Duckie (Jon Cryer), the misfit of misfits, who's been her friend/hanger-on since childhood. Duckie is ravishingly in love with Andie, but to her face he makes a joke of it, talking about his undying love for her and unconditional devotion as a punchline. He dresses like a clown, with mismatched patterns and accessories, but deep down Duckie wants Andie to take him seriously.
Worlds collide when richie Blane (Andrew McCarthy) is smitten with Andie, eventually building up to a date for the prom. When Duckie realizes she's really going to go out with the enemy, he unloads on Andie, resulting in the movie's most famous line: "His name is Blane? That's a major appliance, that's not a name!"
The biggest problem with the film is that the Andie/Blane romance never really takes off. We only get to see them spend any substantive time together in two scenes: their disastrous first date, where they each visit the others' home turf and are in turn rejected by their friends, and a brief second fling where they sneak onto his horse riding club.
McCarthy's performance is ... discomforting. He smiles and stutters, trying to play a character who is inherently descent but pals around with loathsome toads like his best friend Steff, played with delicious malevolence by James Spader. The idea is supposed to be that although Blane comes from a world where everything is taken for granted, he hasn't let it rub off on himself.
Honestly, Blane's creepy as all get out. In the film he has a serial-killer vibe, reminding me of Christian Bale in "American Psycho." His good manners and charm seem like a skillfully-constructed veil that I kept waiting to drop.
The plot wheezes and cranks to its conclusion: Blane gives into peer pressure to dump his girlfriend from "the wrong side," but they have a revelation at the prom, where Duckie, acting as her date and protector, urges her to go after Blane. As many people already know, the original ending has her choosing Duckie over Blane. But knowing that Duckie is the perpetual loser adds poignancy to his depiction.
I find the film more engaging for its little moments and its well-drawn characters than the story paces it puts them through. Spader, despite having fairly limited screen time, breathes life and subtlety into Steff that isn't immediately apparent. Steff had made numerous lecherous advances to Andie over the years and been rebuffed, and can't stand the idea of someone he sees beneath him as standing up to him.
Cryer has one outstanding scene as Duckie, where he lets down his guard of self-mockery, and steels himself to tell Andie how he really feels. But he loses his nerve and lets the other guy get his girl.
Indeed, the entire theme of the movie is about people reconciling themselves to the gap between their dreams and reality. "Pretty in Pink" may not be John Hughes' best film, but in some ways it is his most enduring. He loved to disguise his lessons as confections.
Stephen King in 1983 was an absolute juggernaut, cranking out best-selling novels that all seemed to be turned into popular movies. By the early '80s, Hollywood wasn't even waiting until his books came out, optioning them before publication so they could start work on a film adaptation. Take "Christine," which came out a mere seven months after the book.
"Christine" was regarded as one of the bigger flops of Stephen King movies, but it's held up well over the years and even attained the status of a minor cult hit. (It actually wasn't a money-loser, taking in $21 million in ticket sales against a budget just under $10 million.)
The film has probably had its most profound effect on car collectors who specialize in late 1950s Plymouth Furys, who paint their vehicles in candy apple red with white stripes to obtain their own Christine. Similarly, the remake of "Gone in 60 Seconds" bombed at the box office, but many '68 Mustang fastbacks were converted into Eleanors.
I like "Christine," though I wasn't very much scared by it in 1983 and find it even less so now. What it does achieve is a pervading sense of disquiet -- the film manages to be disturbing without very much overt violence. The movie received an R rating from the MPAA, but the deaths aren't very grisly -- a few F-words here and there seemed to do the trick.
Given the presence of John Carpenter, by then pigeonholed as a director of horror films, working from a script (by Bill Phillips) based on a "horror" novel, it was perhaps inevitable that "Christine" would be judged via the prism of scariness. But if one sits back and lets the movie come to you, it's revealed as quite a decent dark drama with supernatural elements.
Interestingly, both the male leads have since gone on to productive careers behind the camera. Keith Gordon, who had a popular run playing nerds in the '80s ("Back to School"), has directed a bunch of television series episodes, including "Dexter," and helmed several respectable feature films, including "A Midnight Clear."
John Stockwell directed "Crazy/Beautiful," one of Kirsten Dunst's first films, and the horror film "Turistas." There seems to be a nautical theme in his filmography -- the surfer movie "Blue Crush," diver-centric "Into the Blue" and the forthcoming shark movie "Dark Tide."
On the female side, Alexandra Paul went on to a successful television and film career, best known as one of the "Baywatch" babes. And Kelly Preston has a small role as the girl spurned by the popular jock.
Plot-wise, there isn't a whole lot to tell: ostracized high school loser Arnie Cunningham (Gordon) buys a dilapidated 1958 Plymouth Fury and fixes it up. His best friend Dennis (Stockwell) and Arnie's unlikely new girlfriend Leigh (Paul) become convinced the car is haunted by an evil spirit. Soon, bodies start piling up.
The movie varies a bit from the novel, where Christine is possessed by the ghost of her first owner, who killed himself in the car. The film shows the car as evil from birth -- mangling the hand of one worker on the auto assembly line, and killing another who dares to flick cigar ash on her shiny new front seat.
Christine raises some metaphysical questions: What exactly is the source of her foul enchantment? Since she was bad to the rivets once finished, at what stage of construction did sentience manifest? Does the soul reside in the engine, or the differential?
Her main power, of course, is the ability to re-form herself to shiny newness, even after being smashed to a pulp by some local bullies who hate Arnie. Of course, Christine takes her revenge on the hoodlums, running them down or squishing them one by one. The two most memorable death scenes are Christine forcing her bulk into a narrow loading bay to get at one bad guy, ripping her fenders off in the process; and a flaming Christine, emerging from a gas station explosion, chasing the chief bully down a lonesome road in the film's most evocative scene.
Less mesmerizing, and in fact down right hokey is the bit where Robert Prosky, as the surly owner of the you-fix-it garage where Arnie keeps Christine, gets smushed against the steering wheel when she ratchets her front seat all the way forward. Never mind that as far as the seat would go would only give him a bruised belly. Even less plausible is the idea that Arnie would be allowed to continue driving Christine after his boss is found murdered inside of her, instead of being relegated to a police impound lot.
I liked the friendship between Arnie and Dennis. In most movies depicting high schoolers, the nerds and jocks are obligatory enemies, so it's nice to see the football player standing up for his best friend. There's an almost gentle grace between them. Especially touching is the scene where Dennis asks Arnie what he sees in the still-battered Christine.
"I guess I finally found something uglier than me," he says candidly. "You're not ugly, Arnie," Dennis responds, with a genuine note of pity. "I know what I am," Arnie asserts. You don't see too many moments like this in movies of any era, an authentic and heartfelt communication between two 17-year-old guys.
"Christine" was seen as a jalopy when it originally came out, but its reputation has been restored over the last 30 years.
I can't think of a movie I had more fun at so far in 2011 than "Rango," a loopy, occasionally psychedelic animated flick starring Johnny Depp as a bug-eyed lizard. A domesticated pet who lives in a terrarium and invents companions and theatrical productions to amuse himself, he's literally a chameleon, and not just when it comes to the shade of his pebbly skin.
He ends up lost in the Mojave and stumbles into the town of Dirt, populated by every manner of desert critter imaginable. Things are tough in Dirt -- there's a gang of tunneling thieves waiting on the edge of town, a local crime boss looking for newcomers to squish, and the rumor of a slithery gunslinger named Rattlesnake Jake heading back their way.
Through a combination of wild circumstance and his own even more far-fetched boasting, the lizard finds himself appointed sheriff of Dirt, dubbing himself Rango to better suit his new role. Of course, there are all those aforementioned troubles that he's now expected to tackle.
Although kids will surely enjoy it, "Rango" is really a cartoon for adults, stuffed with highbrow humor and sly pop culture references.
Please note, "Rango" hits video outlets on Friday, July 15.
Video features are quite impressive, and you don't have to spring for the top-of-the-line edition to get good stuff.
The DVD version includes both the theatrical version of "Rango" plus an extended cut. To accompany both versions is a feature-length commentary track by director Gore Verbinski and several of his key crew members. There's also a collection of 10 deleted scenes, including an alternate ending, and an educational short about desert animals.
Opt for the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack and you add a number of other goodies, including a digital copy of the film. There's also a virtual tour of Dirt, a doc about this first foray into feature-length animation by Industrial Light & Magic, and a picture-in-picture feature where you can watch the movie in storyboard form.
Movie: 3.5 stars out of four Extras: 3.5 stars out of four
A neon-colored, sun-baked fantasia that's part Western spoof and part surrealist jag through the desert with Johnny Depp as our theatrically unhinged, reptilian tour guide, "Rango" is anything but your standard kiddie animated flick.
It's hard to believe this is the same team behind those "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, which by the first sequel had devolved into formulaic schlock without a shred of story structure. But director Gore Verbinski, Depp and screenwriter John Logan have joined forces for one of the daffiest and most original animated features in a long, long time.
Maybe it's because "Rango," the story of a domesticated lizard who stumbles into a spaghetti Western, didn't issue forth from one of the animation giants like Disney/Pixar, DreamWorks or Blue Sky. It's a partnership between Nickelodeon, Verbinski's production company and George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic, a special effects outfit making its first foray into computer-generated cartoons.
All I can say is, based on everything from the dazzling details on the numerous critters' parched faces to the multihued splendor of the arid landscapes to the crisply-paced action scenes, the ILM gang has announced themselves with authority. The animation in "Rango" -- which doesn't fall back on any cheap 3-D tricks, by the way -- is as good as, or better, than anything Pixar and the gang are doing right now.
Depp voices the lonely lizard passing his days inside his terrarium, imagining himself up some friends for his theatrical productions, in a scene that recalls Jack Sparrow trapped in Davy Jones' Locker in "PotC: At World's End." The film is filled to the brim with references to other movies, including a drive-by homage to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
After a mishap leaves him by the side of the road in the Mojave, our scaly friend with a penchant for changing identities as easily as he can shift colors winds up in the town of Dirt.
The townsfolk, comprising every manner of reptile, bird, arachnid and mammal native to the desert, are suffering through a horrid drought and an even worse funk. When our lizard friend accidentally sends a local marauder to boot hill, he's given the job of sheriff.
He dubs himself Rango, and quickly creates the persona of a Clint Eastwood-esque Man from Nowhere. Rango is delighted at his new status -- not to mention the attentions of Miss Beans (Isla Fisher), a local rancher who has a tendency to freeze up when flustered.
As he bedecks himself in increasingly flamboyant gunslinger garb and spins outrageous tales about killing the evil Jensen brothers with one bullet -- all seven of them -- we begin to wonder if the attention-craving Rango's noodle wasn't already cooked before he ever set a three-toed foot in the desert.
Of course, bigger challenges await. There's a local bully (Ray Winstone) in need of standing up to, a pack of tunneling varmint thieves on the outskirts of town led by a blind mole (Harry Dean Stanton), and a power-hungry Mayor (Ned Beatty) who appears to have been lifted directly out of "Chinatown," right down to the white 10-gallon hat and watery schemes of John Huston's iconic Noah Cross ... except now he's a turtle.
Even worse is the rumor of a dead-eye outlaw named Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) slithering back into town with the tumbleweeds.
It's a loopy, fun ride as we follow Rango on his (mis)adventures, including a posse hunt that culminates in an epic chase sequence complete with mounted bats and Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" arranged for banjos. Even more unexpected is the hallucinogenic amusement of several dream-slash-vision-quest scenes so bursting with colors and freaky-deaky images, I half expected melting clocks to ooze onto the screen.
A wild mishmash of Sergio Leone and Salvador Dali with an all-critter cast, "Rango" is what happens when animators forget about borders and just ride off into whatever sunset their imaginations take them.
