I get the sense that after the snake ran him out of town he was attempting to kill himself at the road. But, like when he had the gun pointed against the snake's head, he was too weak to actually do it so he left it up to chance. The movie is very dark so I can definitely see it tackling such themes. What do you think?
shareI don't think he was trying to kill himself at the road. I think he didn't care if he died, but he wasn't trying to die.
Rango's main motivation is to find an identity, meaning, and friends. He starts out thinking you need to be Mr. Cool Hero, then you get the other two things: meaning (a quest) and friends (fans). When Jake forces him to be a fabricated hero or tell the truth, Rango can't do it: he isn't that guy; he's been pretending and lying about who he is to himself and those around him. The one thing Rango can't stand to face is his own loneliness and his sense of self-worth - or lack thereof. As a non-person, he walks the road. He doesn't care if he lives or not because he already feels so alone and identity-less that he might as well be dead. He makes it across the road because in a zen-like way, he has to lose who he is to find himself. That's when he confronts the core of his loneliness and finds the Spirit of the West who tells him that he's got it backwards: get friends *first* and they give you purpose and identity.
Once Rango becomes his true self (a man seeking to help others, selfless) he can finish his quest and return to Dirt, a hero because of what he does, not because of who he is (or, rather, pretends to be).