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Rango is an ordinary chameleon who accidentally winds up in the town of Dirt, a lawless outpost in the Wild West in desperate need of a new sheriff.

Rango is a pet chameleon always on the lookout for action and adventure, except the fake kind, where he directs it and acts in it. After a car accident, he winds up in an old western town called Dirt. What this town needs the most is water, but they also need a hero and a sheriff. The thirsty Rango instantly takes on the role of both and selfishly agrees to take on the case of their missing water.—napierslogs

Rango is an ordinary pet chameleon with a passion of acting, who ends up in Dirt after a series of unfortunate events. Dirt is a thirsty town inhabited by animals who are in desperate need of water, a new sheriff and, most importantly hope. Rango, being the talented actor that he is, poses as the answer to their problems. Will he really find the water and become the hero that the folks of Dirt think he is, or will he reveal his identity and break their trust?—Umair Farooq

A chameleon who has lived as a sheltered family pet finds himself in the grip of an identity crisis. Rango wonders how to stand out when it is his nature to blend in. When he accidentally winds up in a frontier town called Dirt, he takes the first step on a transformational journey as the town's new sheriff. Though at first Rango only role-plays, a series of thrilling situations and outrageous encounters forces him to become a real hero.—Jwelch5742

Stranded in Nevada's parched Mojave Desert after a freak accident, a pet chameleon with an identity crisis ends up in Dirt, a water-deprived frontier town. And going by the name of Rango, the flamboyant lizard spins a yarn about his unsurpassed shooting skills and lands a job as the godforsaken town's new sheriff. But as pure luck helps the newcomer become the last hope of the lawless outpost, Rango must play the role of guardian until a dangerous, trigger-happy adversary enters the picture. What if Dirt's doomed inhabitants knew Rango was no hero? Does Rango have it in him to be the saviour they've all been waiting for?—Nick Riganas

A pet chameleon (Johnny Depp) becomes stranded in the Mojave Desert after his terrarium falls from his owners' car by accident. Before the accident, the chameleon would stage plays inside the terrarium with other inanimate objects and pretend to be the hero of his own stories. The glass terrarium breaks as it hits the road and the chameleon survives. In the hot desert sun, the chameleon's skin quickly peels off and soon he is dehydrated.

He meets an armadillo named Roadkill (Alfred Molina) a nine-banded armadillo hermit who is seeking the Spirit of the West. The Chameleon realizes that his owner's car swerved on the highway as the armadillo was crossing the road and the car was trying to avoid it. Roadkill directs the parched chameleon to find water at a town called Dirt where water comes in through a mysterious rite on Wednesdays. The town of Dirt is a day's walk away into the desert, away from the highway.

While wandering the desert, he narrowly avoids being eaten by a red-tailed hawk by hiding inside a water bottle with a narrow mouth, so that the hawk cannot get to him. The Chameleon has a surreal nightmare before meeting the desert iguana Beans (Isla Fisher) a hotheaded but good-heart desert iguana rancher who has a tendency to freeze when nervous or stressed.

Beans is suspicious of the chameleon as she saw water gush out of a pipe inside which he was sleeping. Beans was perplexed about why the water would gush out in the middle of nowhere when there is a severe drought going around in those parts. She feels the chameleon had some part to play in it. Beans is a rancher's daughter, who takes the chameleon to Dirt, an Old West town populated by desert animals.

Merrimack runs the local water bank, and he claims that the bank is out of water. The vault contains a single water bottle (of the kind used in human water dispensers) that has some water left as people are not making any deposits. Beans is worried that without water she will lose her ranch. Beans tells Merrimack that someone is dumping water in the desert, which he refuses to believe.

Rango enters the town bar and gets laughed at when he asks for a glass of water and is given cactus juice instead. He is asked about his identity, and the chameleon realizes that he could be anyone he wanted to be. The brand name on the cactus juice bottle is "Durango". Using bravado and improvisation to fit in, the chameleon presents himself to the townsfolk as a tough drifter named Rango. He quickly runs afoul of outlaw Gila monster Bad Bill (Ray Winstone) who challenges him to a duel after Rango accidentally sets him on fire.

Rango avoids a shootout when Bill is scared off by the hawk's return. Rango doesn't see the hawk and believes the Bill ran away from him. Rango boasts about his bravado to the town residents who were all covering in their homes due to the hawk. Rango is chased by the hawk until he accidentally knocks down an empty water tower which crushes the predator. Believing he did so intentionally, the townsfolk praise Rango, who is appointed as the new sheriff by Dirt's elderly desert tortoise mayor (Ned Beatty). Meanwhile, the townsfolk worry that with the hawk dead, infamous western diamondback rattlesnake gunslinger Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy), who fears predators such as it, will return.

After discovering Dirt's water reserves - stored in the town bank inside a water cooler bottle - to be near empty, a skeptical Beans demands Rango investigate. That night, however, Rango inadvertently assists a trio of bank robbers, led by a mole named Balthazar (Harry Dean Stanton), mistaking them for prospectors. The townsfolk find their water bottle stolen the next day, so Rango organizes a posse. They discover bank manager Merrimack (Stephen Root) dead in the desert from drowning and track the robbers to their hideout. They fight the robbers' clan over the stolen water bottle in a chase through a canyon before discovering the bottle to be empty. Despite the robbers professing they had found it empty. The posse brings them to town for trial.

Rango confronts the mayor about his buying of land around Dirt, who denies any wrongdoing and shows Rango that he is building a modern city with the purchased land. Te mayor reveals himself to be responsible for Merrimack's death.

The mayor summons Rattlesnake Jake, who runs Rango out of town after humiliating him and making him admit that everything he told the town about himself is a lie. Rango wanders away ashamed and confused about his identity. Dejected, Rango returns to where he was separated from his owners, where he passes out after he crosses to the other side of the highway.

Then he meets the Spirit of the West (Timothy Olyphant), which appears as a Clint Eastwood lookalike who drives a golf cart, and whom Rango identifies as the Man with No Name. The Spirit inspires Rango, telling him, "No man can walk out on his own story."

With the aid of Roadkill and mystical moving yuccas, Rango learns that Dirt's water supply is controlled by an emergency shut-off valve in a water pipeline to Las Vegas, which the mayor has been manipulating. Recruiting the robbers' clan to aid him, Rango returns to Dirt to call out Jake for a duel with a single bullet, a diversion so the clan and yuccas can turn the pipeline's valve to flood the town with water and free the falsely accused robbers.

The mayor, however, forces Rango to surrender by threatening Beans' life, and locks them inside the glass bank vault to drown. He then tries to shoot Jake with Rango's gun, believing that Jake is still part of the Old West that the mayor wants to destroy along with the rest of the town. The mayor is shocked to discover that the gun is empty. Rango had taken the bullet, which he uses to crack the glass and shatter the vault, freeing himself and Beans while washing the Mayor and his men away outside. Impressed, Jake tips his hat to Rango as thanks for saving his life and drags the mayor into the desert to take revenge for double-crossing him. The citizens of Dirt celebrate the return of the water and recognize Rango as their hero.