The good, the bad ... and 'Rango': A chameleonic quest in the wild west
'Rango' (Gore Verbinski, 2011) is the quirky tale of an isolated chameleon (Johnny Depp) who suddenly finds himself ejected from his ordinary existence and cast into the frame of the American frontier. It is through the conventions of the western that fundamental questions of identity and role-play are answered. The western, with its concern for violence, conflict and the ideology of 'manifest destiny', is one of the film genres most powerfully driven by narrative. But 'Rango's' postmodernist play with genre, narrative and the protean nature of the self engages in powerful ways with the history of film and the transformative importance of stories in our search for identity.