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Johnny Depp as Tonto: When sidekicks become central

Now that the stalled Lone Ranger film starring Johnny Depp as Tonto and and Armie Hammer as the masked man is back on track, it amounts to a trendlet: Revisionist films in which the minority sidekick of yore gets upgraded to central figure.

7 comments

Johnny Depp as Tonto: When sidekicks become central

POSTED: Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 3:14 PM

Carrie Rickey, Film Critic

Johnny Depp, whose Tonto might outshine Kemo Sabe

Now that the stalled Lone Ranger film starring Johnny Depp as Tonto and and Armie Hammer as the masked man is back on track, it amounts to a trendlet: Revisionist movies in which the minority sidekick of yore gets upgraded to central figure.

Earlier this year, Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet had Seth Rogen as a dim Britt Reid upstaged by bright light Kato (Jay Chou). Which other classic stories might profit from making the sidekick the central character?

7 comments

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Comments (7)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:32 PM, 10/12/2011

Does PUSS IN BOOTS from the Shrek series count?

— gmk

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:40 PM, 10/12/2011

I always thought Donkey and Puss in Boots were more interesting than the Ogre, but this may be because I think Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas are more interesting than Mike Myers.

— carrierickey

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:36 PM, 10/12/2011

Hi Carrie: The very thought of Johnny Depp playing Tonto in a movie version of the Lone Ranger is enough to induce serious depression in a previously untroubled person and makes it difficult to focus on your question. I'm not sure the phrase "revisionist movies" captures the dreadful, awful import of this "back on track" project. You just want to take a ruler to the knuckles of the person who conceived this. I mean -- why?

— ccjroberts

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:51 PM, 10/12/2011

I don't know, ccjroberts. I see this as having the approximate relationship to The Lone Ranger that "The Wide Sargasso Sea" has to "Jane Eyre" or "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" has to "Hamlet." That is to say, imagining how a familiar narrative plays out from the perspective of a character we think of as subsidiary.

— carrierickey

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:45 PM, 10/12/2011

This dialogue seems to connect to one of your posts last year about Russell Brand in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and then subsequently, "Get Him to the Greek"; it's generally not advisable to give a supporting character in one movie a lead another simply because of his or her popularity in the first film, because past of the appeal of any given character may be, in part, due in part to their subordinate role--too much of a good thing is indeed too much sometimes. Although "Wide Sargasso Sea" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" are notable exceptions!

— Alice215

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:22 PM, 10/14/2011

One of my favorite "sidekicks take the lead" films is WITHOUT A CLUE starring MICHAEL CAINE and BEN KINGSLEY, in which a bumpling, drunk Sherlock Holmes is actually the front for the real detective, Dr. Watson.

— adimike55