Rango

Cowboys and westerns never held too much charm for me - and I can count on my fingers the numbers of westerns I have seen. This year's oscar frontrunner True Grit has been the only western that I have really appreciated - and that was because of the brilliant portrayals of Rooster Cogburn and Mattie Ross by the leading actors. But back to our movie of the day - Rango - play on the famous 1966 movie Django perhaps (one of the few I have seen).

Rango is a through-and-through western, right down to the last gunslinger, only told through the medium of animation. The small town of Dirt, in the midst of the western desert, is populated by rodents and reptiles - who are having a difficult time as water is drying up. Enter Rango, a chameleon who is not quite sure who exactly he is - but with tall tales of valour and a lucky encounter with a hawk - earns himself the badge of Sheriff of the town

But he still has to unravel the mystery of the missing water. And impeding him are the Machiavellian mayor of the town and Rattlesnake Jake, a machine-gun toting villian. All of these set up for a climactic standoff in the main street of Dirt

While most animation movies tend me to make light fun out of movie genres, Rango is a serious tribute to it. Hence missing are the jokes, the laughter and the feel-goodiness of a usual Pixar presentation (this is neither a Pixar movie nor Disney). All the jokes are very dry and this is anything but a movie for kids. The animation is of extremely high quality though - it is fun to try and identify each of the animals. The movie itself has a somewhat dark edge to it - not as much as Persepolis or Waltz with Bashir, but similar. Rango didnt work for me at all, even though I loved the other two. Am really not sure who this movie is for, apart from the classic western fans