Red Rock West

"Red rock west" superbly ends on a train,while Dwight Yoakam's sensational "A thousand miles from nowhere" is heard during the final credits.One should note that the excellent soundtrack features two songs of the late great Johnny Cash and other chestnuts.

What about the movie?It's an excellent entertaining flick.Two tremendous leads :Nicolas Cage ,who always seems overtaken by events,always looking stupefied and Dennis Hopper who does not take his character seriously and deliciously overacts while displaying a lot of humor.All the supporting cast is excellent ,and as absolutely no one can be trusted in this money story,there are enough twists to satisfy the action-packed movie buff.One should notice that ,towards the end ,in the graveyard ,the movie verges on horror.

An excellent entertainment for a hard day's night.

Vaguely reminiscent of great 1940's westerns, like "The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre" (1948), "Red Rock West" is a story about conscience, greed, and betrayal. Michael (Nicolas Cage) is a down and out, but honest, young man from Texas who goes west in search of work and money. He finds both, but not in the way he had expected.

The film's screenplay contains plenty of surprises and plot twists. Excellent cinematography, adroit film editing, and moody western music add tension and suspense. The expansiveness of the big sky country provides a wonderful setting. And the acting ranges from good to excellent, with great performances from Dennis Hopper and J.T. Walsh. Dwight Yoakam's specially recorded country/western song provides the film with a strong finale.

Correctly labeled as neo-noir, "Red Rock West" strikes me as being something else, as well. The plot is full of amazing coincidences and improbable timing, so much so that others may regard the screenplay as flawed. Ordinarily, I would agree. In this case, however, when combined with the moody atmosphere, and the fact that the small town of Red Rock seems almost empty of normal daily life, the coincidences and unlikely timing suggest a story that, beyond "noirish", is ... surreal. It's almost as if fate deliberately intervenes with improbable events so as to force Michael to come to grips with himself. From this point of view, the coincidences are not script flaws at all. They are necessary plot points in a nightmarish story of a young man who must confront his own demons ... disguised as other characters.

All we need here is Rod Serling, in a postscript, explaining, in his always clearly enunciated voice, that ... a young man, searching for himself, stops in a small, almost deserted town a thousand miles from nowhere. It's his final layover in a journey to ... the twilight zone.

A basically decent drifter (Nicolas Cage) lands in the tiny town of Red Rock, Wyoming, looking for work. When he stops in the bar, the bar owner (J. T. Walsh) asks why he took so long and asks him to step in the back office so they can discuss the job. Cage plays along, then discovers the work is to kill the bar owner's wife. He takes the money, drives out to the ranch to warn the wife (Laura Flynn Boyle), and starts to leave town. Problems arise and he returns to town in time to witness the real hit man (Dennis Hopper) arrive. Things go downhill for the Cage character after that.

This is an excellent, convoluted, well-acted and offbeat mystery. Funny, too. Cage never knows what's happening, but everybody else assumes he does. Dennis Hopper again plays a charming semi-psycho but he hadn't patented the style yet so it seems fresh. J. T. Walsh was a great character actor who died young. He's outstanding as the bar owner...who also happens to be the sheriff. He has one or two other secrets as well. And if Boyle doesn't rev your engine, you may need a tune up. She's more ruthless than the lot of them.

A little known neo - noir (read all about this after watching this) gem, RRW is supremely well constructed and makes great use of its plot and minimalist setting.

I would request watchers to not read the IMDb summary and pledge head long into it. It's unpredictable and is a lot of fun to watch, without knowing where the narrative is heading.

Nicholas Cage, Dennis Hopper and JT Walsh give A grade performances. But, it is the assured direction and the superb screenplay that keep you glued to the screen.

Highly recommended.

Red Rock West is what all films should be like. A genuinely interesting film with enough twists and turns to satisfy any sane human, it was tragically overlooked on its release. With Nicolas Cage (before his career went into orbit) in fine form and Dennis Hopper stealing scene after scene, this is a movie that withstands repeated watchings. The rest of the cast are uniformly excellent and the quirkiness of the setting (a small town in the middle of nowhere) never gets in the way. In short this is a great little film that deserves to be seen.