This is the modern west, in all its desolation and deterioration a wilderness where the only oases are cinderblock bars tarted up with neon, where there are so few inhabitants that men (and on occasion women) must wear more than one hat. Into Wyoming, lured by a buddy's promise of a job, comes Nicholas Cage, up from Texas, but loses it because of his bum leg (he was in the bombing of the marine barracks in Lebanon).
Ducking into a saloon for a cup of coffee he probably can't even pay for, he's offered a high paying gig by the owner (J. T. Walsh), who seems to know him: Knocking off his cheatin' wife (Lara Flynn Boyle). No fool, Cage takes the money but, no killer, warns her (and, in an anonymous letter, the sheriff) that her life's in jeopardy. Driving away, he hits a man; taking him to the hospital, it turns out the man had been shot and that he was Flynn's trailer-cowboy lover. Arrested, Cage discovers that the sheriff is the bar owner that hired him. That's almost the end of him, but rescue comes from an unlikely source the real Texas hit-man Walsh engaged (Dennis Hopper)....
Red Rock West numbers among those latter-day suspense thrillers that are called neo-noir. Translated, this generally turns out to mean that the plot has a few more twists than usual; it says nothing about look, or outlook, or the other characteristics that make the noir cycle such a distinctive period in cinema history.
And Red Rock West is almost entirely plot (though its spare photography has a unity to it). Its performances are never less than competent but never much more, either; the characters are outgrowths of the plot, not vice versa. John Dahl, the director, would do some well-above-average work in his next movie, The Last Seduction. But that may just have been a fluke. Judging by later movies such as Joy Ride, his talents slant decidedly toward the commercial that is, to plot, and then more plot, twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.
Ducking into a saloon for a cup of coffee he probably can't even pay for, he's offered a high paying gig by the owner (J. T. Walsh), who seems to know him: Knocking off his cheatin' wife (Lara Flynn Boyle). No fool, Cage takes the money but, no killer, warns her (and, in an anonymous letter, the sheriff) that her life's in jeopardy. Driving away, he hits a man; taking him to the hospital, it turns out the man had been shot and that he was Flynn's trailer-cowboy lover. Arrested, Cage discovers that the sheriff is the bar owner that hired him. That's almost the end of him, but rescue comes from an unlikely source the real Texas hit-man Walsh engaged (Dennis Hopper)....
Red Rock West numbers among those latter-day suspense thrillers that are called neo-noir. Translated, this generally turns out to mean that the plot has a few more twists than usual; it says nothing about look, or outlook, or the other characteristics that make the noir cycle such a distinctive period in cinema history.
And Red Rock West is almost entirely plot (though its spare photography has a unity to it). Its performances are never less than competent but never much more, either; the characters are outgrowths of the plot, not vice versa. John Dahl, the director, would do some well-above-average work in his next movie, The Last Seduction. But that may just have been a fluke. Judging by later movies such as Joy Ride, his talents slant decidedly toward the commercial that is, to plot, and then more plot, twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.