The Lone Ranger (2013)

This is not your father's Lone Ranger.  The storu has a quirky beginning, with a Native American statue labeled 'The Noble Savege' coming to life and telling a young boy dressed in full cowboy gear his story of the way the American West was won.  I'll give you a hint, it is not based on the good intentions of hard working men.  It was a corrupt and corporate business driven by money and greed (Tom Wilkinson has yet another amicable bad guy role to play here).

Johnny Depp turns in an impecable straight laced comic performance that is reminicent of Buster Keaton.  His comical face paint does not hurt, but he is equal parts competent, contemptuous, and honorable in his dealings with John Reid (played by Armie Hammer), the kutzy and seriously uncool man who becomes the Lone Ranger.  Tonto is his own man and not a side kick.  He is no Sancho, and that is not the end to where the story veers off from the one we all know.

The West in this movie does not deviate much from what was portrayed in the the 1950's except in it's protrayal of the role that railroads and cash drove what happened in small Western towns--money talks and the bad guys run rough shod over the good guys, and bankers were the real winners.
In this rendition, the Lone Ranger is a decent man from the start, but he's unknowingly serving corrupt masters.  By the end, the Ranger has become something close to an American Robin Hood — an outlaw-by-circumstance who understands the difference between brute force and true moral authority. It is a  long and rambling movie (especially by Disney standards) that is pleasant to watch, often very funny, and occasionally wise.