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Sunday 9 February 2014

The Lone Ranger

From Wikipedia

I still have the remnants of a cold, so yesterday we decided to spend the evening watching a film. I braved the chill winds to search out a DVD in Sainsbury’s – anything even vaguely watchable was the brief.

After peering a row after row of dross I settled on The Lone Ranger, partly because I watched the TV series as a child in the fifties and partly because the film was a flop and the critics generally panned it. I hardly watch films, but anything panned by the critics must be worth a look.

Well it’s rather long at 143 minutes, but I thought it was fine. Good guys, bad guys, lots of gore, lots of action and plenty of knockabout humour.

Apart from the gore, special effects and humour, it’s a fairly straightforward western with runaway trains, a whorehouse madam with a shotgun hidden in her false leg, Johnny Depp with a dead crow on his head and a somewhat reluctant Lone Ranger.

I won’t give anything away in case you haven’t seen it, but although a little long, I found it to be watchable fun. What else is a film supposed to be?

5 comments:

Sam Vega said...

"What else is a film supposed to be?"

It depends on the film, but some of them are supposed to be a serious commentary on the way we live our lives; and other are supposed to be works of art. Just like novels, really.

This particular one, however...

Tim Almond said...

There's sometimes a suggestion that critics tend to judge production and budgets rather than the film itself.

The critics were harsh towards John Carter, which was nothing special, but just fine.

I'll check it out and post a review over on Mark Wadsworth.

A K Haart said...

Sam - I've never seen a film I'd describe as a serious commentary on the way we live our lives. Would people watch it?

Stigler - some critics seem bonkers to me. I once heard one on Radio 4 ask "how do you take your film?" "With a beer" was the only reply I could think of.

I'm far from being a film buff though - I'd never heard of John Carter.

Thud said...

The lone ranger just seemed to wander around with no real destination, I did enjoy john Carter though.

A K Haart said...

Thud - it did wander, but the destination was always going to be the good guy beating the bad guys.