The Lone Ranger
The Wolf of Wall Street
by Paul Zuckerman

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2013, my wife and I thought we would treat ourselves to two films: the The Lone Ranger back to back with The Wolf of Wall Street Not typical holiday fare, but we made up for it with the O. Henry’s Full House and White Christmas, with that delightful Irving Berlin score, a few days later.) On the surface, the two films appear to have little in common. But I found them both disturbing in different but related ways.

We can dispense quickly with whether the movies are “good” or not. While the Ranger was an unmitigated commercial and critical failure, the Wolf has done rather well in both areas, garnering both large audiences and high accolades. But both were made by directors in full directorial command; and had good casts, expensive production values, seemingly unlimited budgets. And extended run times. With regard to the latter, both probably could have stood some trimming—The Ranger clocks in at 149 minutes, while the Wolf comes in at a whopping 180. Despite the length, they didn’t drag (much) and both held my interest. But make sure you bring plenty of popcorn.

The Lone Ranger is the latest revival and resurrection of the famous masked man. He has fallen on hard times in recent decades. The Ranger was created in 1933 for a radio show that ran over 20 years. Along the way, there were several movies including two serials, comic books and a couple of TV series. While the deep voice of Brace Beemer was the radio-voice of the Ranger, for most baby boomers, the Ranger is forever identified with Clayton Moore, who played the Ranger forcefully but kindly on four of the five season-221 episode TV series. The series ran between 1949 and 1957, and then in endless reruns for decades afterwards. Moore never appeared on the show without a mask or disguise. The Ranger showed his unmasked face only to his faithful Indian companion Tonto and nephew Dan Reid—the audience never saw his face.

Despite the mask, the Ranger stood for justice and good. At the end of each episode, he, with his silver bullets and the help of the great horse Silver and the aforementioned faithful Indian companion Tonto, (and sometimes nephew Dan)* has restored law and order or otherwise set things to right. He did this without ever shooting to kill any of the hundreds of bad guys populating the Ranger’s Old West. His aim was dead-on, and he was forever shooting guns out of the bad guys’ hands. The Ranger never acted in anger or revenge. Ordinary, honest people could use all the help that they could get with all of the rustlers, horse thieves, and bank robbers, on the prowl in the old West. The Ranger and Tonto provided the balance needed to help good triumph over evil.

Although the radio and TV shows were intended primarily for children, the Ranger’s world was actually full of danger and death. For those unaware of the origin of the Lone Ranger, the legend began when eight Texas Rangers are shot by Butch Cavendish and his gang. Tonto discovers John Rei, the only surviving Ranger ,wounded and nearly dead and nurses him back to life, but not before digging a grave for John as well as the Ranger’s seven companions—including the head ranger, John’s brother. Tonto is likewise alone and, despite the prejudice against Indians (and the radio and TV show often showed that), he joins the Ranger in his crusade to bring Cavendish and other criminals to justice. In those simpler days, no more motive was needed or offered to fight crime.

In the 2013 version, John (competently played by Armie Hammer) is an attorney returning from the East. He had a prior romance with his brother’s wife, who appears to still be carrying a torch for him. On the train carrying John home, Tonto (played by Johnny Depp) was a prisoner as is Cavendish. In an outrageous action sequence, John gets his first taste of action and dealing with Tonto, an inscrutable Indian who has little respect for tenderfoot John.

Director Gore Verbinksi renews his partnership with Depp, which was so successful in three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and The Ranger is clearly intended to be another fun-romp patterned after those flicks--outrageous and unbelievable action movie punctuated with near-campish humor, with an occasional moment of seriousness to lend some gravitas to the goings-on. But, from the beginning, the movie’s tone shifts radically and jarringly from scene to scene. A brutal and graphic depiction of the slaughter of an Indian village is followed immediately by a slapstick comedy bit involving Tonto. Since Tonto is seeking revenge for the slaughter to his own village, the bit is both incongruous and unsettling. Light family fluff entertainment has suddenly been saddled with scenes of genocide and brutal death. Indeed, the depiction of Tonto is another example of the jarring multiple tones. The movie opens with Tonto in 1936, seemingly reduced to being a performer in a Wild West show but despite that and Tonto’s tragic history, Depp’s performance is often so over the top, and his appearance with a dead raven on his head is so bizarre, that it is hard to reconcile the jokes with the character.

The movie pays lip services to the Ranger’s traditional moral code, but doesn’t seem to take those principles seriously. John doesn’t believe in killing and wants to bring the bad guys to justice, but he comes across as naïve and innocent. Tonto is bent on killing those who brought destruction to his village and the movie is a tug of war between their different goals and principles. But, while the Ranger shoots guns out of the villains’ hands, and claims to want to bring Cavendish to justice, he and Tonto, in the climax of the movie, set explosives to blow up a train trestle. While they manage to save the trainload of passengers (who wouldn’t have been in harm’s way but for the TNT that the Ranger and Tonto had left), they have no compunctions about allowing he bad guys get blown up.

Clearly, a mixed message is delivered and the failure of the movie makers to take seriously the Ranger’s principles results in a movie that undercuts those principles and leaves a sour tone. (Other movies that suffered from the same lack of understanding include the first Michael Keaton Batman and the recent Man of Steel.)

A word about Depp portraying Tonto. Although Tonto on the radio was not performed by a Native American, every other film or TV show utilized a Native American in the role (Jay Silverheels famously so)). Keeping Tonto in war paint kept Tonto’s face even more masked than the Ranger’s (who appears unmasked more than he is masked) and thus allowed a non-Native American to play Tonto. One must question the judgment behind this.



The Wolf of Wall Street shares both a title and theme—stock manipulation—with a 1929 movie. Where the 1929 movie ends with the manipulator in financial ruin, having rectified some of the harm that he has done, the 2013 movie, directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the life of and book by Jordan Belfort, ends with Belfort, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, free from a country-club prison and gainfully engaged as a motivational speaker, still selling his brand of snake oil. The real-life Belfort, convicted of stock market manipulation fraud, lived the high life (literally and figuratively) for many years, and The Wolf is essentially a depiction of those wild and wacky years.

And wild and wacky is exactly the right description for Belfort’s time in the sun It’s sort of like watching the antics in Animal House. Most of the movie is graphically devoted to the wild sex, drugs, and outrageous behavior of Belfort and his colleagues, mostly humorously and always with loving detail. Every half hour or so, Scorsese throws in a short scene where the viewer sees some of the wreckage strewn about by Belfort- a smashed up car, a sunken boat, a few discarded wives. Only one scene, where Belfort nearly injures his child seems to have any real impact (on him or the audience) and that only momentarily. And then, it’s back to the fun and games, a joy ride of ups, ups, and some downs—and then up again.

And there is the rub. The movie has several funny set pieces; it plays as a comedy. Indeed, there is little sense of any harm done to anyone by Belfort’s manipulations. The people that Belfort swindles are faceless and never show up in the movie. In fact, you are not even sure exactly what he did wrong. On several occasions, Belfort charmingly speaks directly to the audience and says his schemes were too complicated to explain; and, anyway, was nothing on the scale of what the Wall Street titans were doing with credit default swaps (CDS).

Hence, the audience is left with only a vague sense of wrongdoing, while the endearing Belfort staggers from one drug and sex orgy to another, while raking in millions of dollars. He had yachts, expensive cars, women, mansions. What a life! Beautiful naked women fill the screen throughout one comic escapade after the other. The audience is a voyeur into a lifestyle that they could barely imagine, let alone actually live.

Now, Hollywood has always danced on a tightrope between showing in full loving detail the seamy side, while moralizing about how the evils being displayed. Movies professing to be anti-war or anti-violence, while spending two hours blowing up everything in sight. Movies professing a Puritanical ethic while displaying nudity and sex endlessly. Movies reveling against crime, while making the criminals charismatic and charming.

Movies are amazing tools for propaganda and influence. A skilled director can make the audience root for murderers or worse. Charismatic actors from James Cagney to Warren Beatty to Paul Newman to Susan Sarandon can make you ignore what Tom, Clyde, Butch or Louise are doing and get you to feel bad and hope that they won’t end up in a hail of bullets or going off a cliff. Clint Eastwood or Kiefer Southerland can make you forget about the Fourth Amendment when Dirty Harry or Jack is beating up some lowlife or terrorist. Of course, that’s the point—movies manipulate the audience into identifying with the protagonist, but usually it’s against lowlifes, tyrants, mobsters, killers, abusive bullies, the bank. The audience, despite itself, ends up rooting for the the underdog, no matter how despicable. .

So, that explains, partially at least, why the masses from whom Belfort steals are faceless, or, when shown, are unsympathetic characters. To show ordinary people being ripped off might have shown how vile he was and diminish the fun, happy-go-lucky atmosphere of the movie.

The other way to take the audience along for the ride is to make sure there is no one equally charismatic to represent the forces of law and order. Instead, the object is to make the defender of justice either equally vile or as colorless and boring as possible. The Wolf opts for the latter as Kyle Chandler, playing the lead FBI agent, refuses a bribe and follows in the footsteps of those colorless cops that had to vie with Steve McQueen and Pierce Brosnan in both versions of The Thomas Crown Affair, as well as countless other boring law enforcement officials. One has to stop and think long and hard to remember who played those characters. And, you’ll probably still not remember. (Note that Dirty Harry always contended with corrupt cops or ambitious politicians).

Particularly disturbing is a scene where one of Belford’s employees, a young woman, agrees to have her head shaved at an office party celebrating some great deal. Everyone in the office is laughing although the woman is noticeably uncomfortable and distressed as her hair tumbles off in large locks. One wonders if the actress playing the employee was only acting as (apparently) her real hair is shorn.

Indeed, the scene with the employee appears to blend the reel with the real in displaying a misogynist attitude, and so does the rather one-sided depiction of nudity and sexual activity. Now, as a card-carrying red-blooded hetero male, I will endure copious female nudity in the services of art. Or otherwise. But, one cannot help but marvel at how carefully Scorsese manages to hide male nudity while more-than-copious female nudity and touching of women’s private parts is on display throughout the movie, including full frontal display by up-and-coming starlet-to-be Margot Robbie and a scene of Belfort snorting cocaine from the woman’s anal cavity. The unwritten law of Hollywood appears to be that actresses on the way up or on the way down must display themselves more than the male of the species.

But to return to our honest cop above. Our intrepid FBI agent is last seen riding the subway, staring at the other poor souls living colorless and boring existences. Does he regret refusing the bribe? Or is he content that he has defended the forces of justice and good on a civil servant salary? His thoughts are his own, but Belford ends the movie on the comeback trail, unrepentant after a short stay in that country-club hotel, um, I mean, jail. Does our agent feel that he is wearing a big sign that says “sucker”?—and do the honest members of the audience feel the same way about the agent—and themselves?

Perhaps a little dose of O. Henry and Irving Berlin was in order after these two movies.

* The Ranger’s nephew Dan is a pivotal connection to another long-running radio series, which also had a stint on TV, though not as successfully as the Ranger, and appeared in a recent big-budget movie that equally unsuccessfully played the characters for laughs. Dan is the father of Britt Reid, two-fisted publisher of the Daily Sentinel who, with his faithful Asian companion, Kato, fights the biggest of game in the big city as…the Green Hornet! Both the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet were created by the same Detroit team, spearheaded by writer Fran Striker.


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