Red Rock West

''Red Rock West'' is a 1993 American post-Western neo-noir thriller film directed by John Dahl and starring Nicolas Cage, Lara Flynn Boyle, J. T. Walsh, and Dennis Hopper. Its plot focuses on a drifter who is mistaken for a hitman while traveling through a rural Wyoming community. The film was written by Dahl and his brother Rick, and shot in Arizona, Montana, and Los Angeles in 1992.

The film premiered in several European countries and screened at the 1993 Toronto International Film Festival before being given a limited theatrical release in the United States, beginning at Los Angeles's Roxie Theater on January 28, 1994. Its release expanded in Los Angeles and New York City that spring, but the film was a box-office flop, grossing $2.5 million.

Plot

Michael Williams is a drifter living out of his car after being discharged from the Marine Corps. After a job on a Wyoming oilfield falls through due to his unwillingness to conceal a war injury on his job application, Michael wanders into the rural town of Red Rock looking for other work. A local bar owner named Wayne mistakes him for a hitman, "Lyle from Dallas", whom Wayne has hired to kill his wife. Wayne offers him a stack of cash—"half now, half later"—and Michael plays along by taking the money.

Michael visits Wayne's wife, Suzanne, but instead of killing her, warns her that her life is in danger. She offers him more money to kill Wayne. Michael tries to leave town with her cash, but runs into a man by the side of the road and turns back to bring him to the hospital. It turns out that the hurt man had been shot shortly before Michael ran into him, and the hospital calls in the local sheriff, who turns out to be Wayne. Michael escapes but runs into the real Lyle from Dallas. Lyle and Wayne quickly figure out what has transpired, while Michael desperately tries to warn Suzanne before Lyle finds her.

The next morning, when Lyle comes to get money from Wayne, he kidnaps both Suzanne and Michael, who are trying to retrieve cash from a safe in Wayne's office. Wayne and Suzanne are revealed to be wanted for embezzlement, and Wayne is arrested by his own deputies. Lyle returns with Michael and Suzanne hostage and gets Wayne out of jail to retrieve their stash of money. The dig up the cash from a remote graveyard where Wayne had buried it, and a melee ensues, with Lyle being killed, Wayne gravely injured, and Michael hurt as well.

Michael and Suzanne board a nearby train, but when Suzanne tries to betray Michael, he throws the money out of the speeding train and then pushes Suzanne off to be arrested by the police. He remarks finally, "Adios, Red Rock". Michael notices and keeps a small packet of bills that hadn't blown out of the box car, and keeps riding the train.

Cast

Production

''Red Rock West'' was filmed in 1992 on location in Willcox, Arizona on a budget of $7 million. Additional filming took place in Missoula, Montana, while the cemetery scenes were filmed inside an airplane hangar in Santa Monica, California. Some interior sequences were shot on soundstages in Los Angeles.

Release

The domestic rights to ''Red Rock West'' were sold to Columbia TriStar Home Video for $2.5 million and the foreign rights to Manifesto Films, a subsidiary of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. Test screenings for ''Red Rock West'' were not strong and Peter Graves, an independent consultant who headed the marketing department at Polygram said, "The film doesn't fall neatly into any marketable category. A western film noir isn't something people can immediately spark to". One of the producers suggested early on that the film be submitted to the Sundance Film Festival and was told by the studio that it was not a festival film. The film opened successfully in theaters in Germany, Paris, and London in the summer of 1993. It opened theatrically in Australia on November 19, 1993.

Piers Handling, director of the Toronto International Film Festival, saw the film in Paris and decided to show it at the festival in September 1993. Bill Banning, who owned the Roxie Cinema and Roxie Releasing in San Francisco, saw ''Red Rock West'' in Toronto and thought that there might be an American theatrical audience for the film. It took him until January 1994 to find out who owned the rights. The film had already played on HBO in the fall of 1993 and was due to be released on video in February 1994. Banning started showing ''Red Rock West'' at the Roxie Cinema in Los Angeles on January 28, 1994, where it broke box office records before expanding to eight theaters in the city.

It later had its general Los Angeles premiere on March 25, 1994, and opened in New York City on April 8, 1994.

Home media

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released ''Red Rock West'' on DVD in 1999. Vinegar Syndrome released the film on Blu-ray through their Cinématographe sub-label in March 2024, featuring a new 4K restoration from the original film elements.

Reception

Box office

''Red Rock West'' grossed $2,502,551 in the United States against its approximately $7 million budget, and was a box-office flop.

Critical response

In his review for ''The Washington Post'', Richard Harrington praised it as "a treasure waiting to be discovered". Writing in ''The New York Times'', Caryn James called it "a terrifically enjoyable, smartly acted, over-the-top thriller". Roger Ebert praised it as "a diabolical movie that exists sneakily between a western and a thriller, between a film noir and a black comedy," and gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four.

Year-end lists

* 4th – Michael MacCambridge, ''Austin American-Statesman''
* 7th – Peter Travers, ''Rolling Stone''
* 9th – Gene Siskel, ''The Chicago Tribune''
* 10th – Peter Rainer, ''Los Angeles Times''
* Honorable mention – William Arnold, ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer''
* Honorable mention – David Elliott, ''The San Diego Union-Tribune''

Music

The soundtrack for the film features a number of country music performers, including Johnny Cash, Shania Twain, Toby Keith, The Kentucky Headhunters, and Sammy Kershaw. Dwight Yoakam wrote the film's closing credits song "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere" when the film was being made and while the musician made his acting debut in the film. The song went on to become a Top 10 country hit.

References

Sources

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External links

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''Bright Lights Film Journal'' article

{{John Dahl

1993 films
1993 independent films
1993 thriller films
American crime films
American independent films
American neo-noir films
American thriller films
Contemporary Western films
Films about contract killing in the United States
Films directed by John Dahl
Films scored by William Olvis
Films set in Wyoming
Films shot in Arizona
Films shot in California
Films shot in Montana
Films produced by Steve Golin
Films with screenplays by John Dahl
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment films
1990s English-language films
1990s American films
English-language thriller films
English-language independent films