Release Date: 15th April 2011

Runtime: 107 mins

Director: Gore Verbinski

Writer: John Logan

Cast: Johny Depp, Isla Fisher, Timothy Olyphant, Bill Nighy 

Language: English

 

Rating: 4/5

 

It's time to brush off the dust from your cowboy hats and dig out those boots coz the gun slinging heroes of the Wild West are back, though in a different avatar this time.

 

A pet chameleon (Johny Depp) is accidentally stranded in the Mojave Desert. After a narrow escape from a hawk and a nightmare he meets Beans (Isla Fisher), a desert Iguana who speaks at the speed of light and freezes mid sentence as a defence mechanism. She takes the chameleon to Dirt, a town populated by desert animals and in a desperate need of a hero who will bring them water. The scarcity is so much that the town has a bank that deposits water.

 

In order to ‘blend in’, the chameleon cooks up stories of bravado and presents himself as Rango; the mighty stranger. In a wild chase to protect himself Rango ends up killing the hawk and the mayor Turtle John appoints him as the sheriff of otherwise lawless Dirt. Rango’s job now is to protect the water. In the process he has to take on the evil mayor and the ferocious rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) and discover his own identity.

 

After a long time Hollywood has produced an animation film which is anything but cute. The characters are rugged and ugly reptiles and animals. The film blends in the elements of Wild West movies like China Town, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Jhango and the likes. Such tribute cannot be completed without a mention of Clint Eastwood; the face of all Wild West movies. So, he does appear in the form of ‘Spirit of the West’; a cameo done by Eastwood in his numerous films.

 

Despite the slapstick humour Rango doesn’t fit the children’s film criteria. The line ‘one who controls water controls everything’ works as a metaphor pointing towards the hunger of controlling wealth. 

 

Johny Depp does a flawless work as usual, even if it is just by using his voice.  The soundtrack by Hans Zimmer gives the right blend of nostalgia and humour. 

 

Although Rango is an animated film yet the animation never seems to overpower the story. Those who have ignored it for that specific reason (animation) don’t give it a miss.