Red Rock West
Dir: John Dahl
1993
****
Red Rock West is one of the greatest independent films of the 1990s. I remember it was one of those films that would linger in the bargain bin of the video shop for ages, so eventually I had to buy it and I’m so glad I did. I still don’t understand why it isn’t ever discussed, as Nicolas Cage is brilliant in it as are the late J. T. Walsh and Dennis Hopper. A retrospective of either Walsh or Hopper – or Cage for that matter – should always include a mention of Red Rock West. The early 90s was a strange time for cinema and many a dud film was regarded as a hit and many a classic got overlooked and forgotten. Written by John Dahl and his brother Rick, Red Rock West was a film that not even its producers liked (none of them turned up for the film’s premier) but once people discovered it, it became a cult underground classic, albeit too late for the Dahl brothers to make any money. Strange really, as it was said to have been well received at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival in 1993. Its worth watching just to see Cage doing one-armed push-ups in the middle of a desert road to be honest. The story is about Michael Williams (Nicolas Cage), a drifter living out of his car after being discharged from the Marine Corps. A job on an oilfield falls through due to his unwillingness to conceal a war injury on his job application, so he wanders into rural Red Rock, Wyoming, looking for other work. A local bar owner named Wayne (J. T. Walsh) mistakes him for a hit man, "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 (Lara Flynn Boyle) and attempts to warn her that her life is in danger instead of killing her. She offers him more money to kill Wayne. Michael tries to leave town but a car accident leads him to encounter the local sheriff, who turns out to be Wayne also. Michael manages to escape from Wayne but runs into the real Lyle from Dallas (Dennis Hopper). 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 hidden cash from 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. At a remote graveyard, Wayne pulls a gun from the case of money and holds Lyle at gunpoint before Lyle throws a knife into Wayne's neck. Michael and Lyle fight, with Lyle ending up being impaled on a grave marker. When Lyle rises to attack Michael, Suzanne shoots him dead. Michael and Suzanne escape onto a nearby train, but when Suzanne tries to betray Michael, he throws the money out of the speeding train and then throws Suzanne off to be arrested by the police accompanied by a wounded Wayne. Michael's train continues its journey into a new town. The big problem the film had was that the studio didn’t have faith in the neo-noir western. They thought that only art films could go down that road, not realising that Red Rock West was made up of the same stuff as some of the most highly regarded classics. It was also something new, something that any studio worth their salt would have got behind and promoted. I look at it now and wonder how the hell it didn’t become a classic. It should be seen as an iconic piece of cinema, with bootleg t-shirts and posters being produced, like they are with Pulp Fiction. The soundtrack is also outstanding, featuring great Country & Western artists such as Johnny Cash, Shania Twain, Toby Keith, The Kentucky Headhunters and Sammy Kershaw. Dwight Yoakam’s end credits song even got to number 10 in the charts and still people didn’t know it was from the film. Dennis Hopper was originally considered for the role of the Sheriff, which eventually went to J.T. Walsh. However, Hopper fought John Dahl hard for the meatier role of hit man-with-low-self-esteem Lyle, which the director initially refused because of the similarities of Dennis Hopper's character to Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. After much pleading, Hopper won the role and it was a huge success and one of the actor’s most underrated performances in his career. When the kids today tell me how uncool the 1990s were I tell them to go watch Red Rock West. It doesn’t work but maybe you only get it if you watched it at the time, but I thought it was cool then and I think it is cool now.