Red Rock West movie review & film summary (1994)
At some fundamental level, all he really wants to do is get out of Red Rock and never come back again, and the movie's running gag is that he keeps leaving town and finding himself returning to it. The "Welcome to Red Rock" sign turns up in the movie like a signpost in a nightmare. And eventually it's clear that Cage, and all of the others, are going to be trapped there until they bring their deadly quadrangle to some sort of a conclusion.
J. T. Walsh, whose character has secrets I will not reveal, is one of the most interesting of recent movie villains because he seems so superficially open and honest (one of his first big roles, significantly, was as a Chicago alderman in "Backdraft"). Other villains snarl and bluster. He desperately tries to reason things through, to appeal to logic or to dependable strategies like threats.
In a way he's the most confused by the labyrinthine situations he finds himself in, since they don't seem to respond to reasonable strategies.
Hopper plays a version of the character he has become famous for: The smiling, charming, cold-blooded killer with a screw loose. All he really wants to do is collect his money and do his job, and he only gets dangerous when he realizes how thoroughly a simple hit has been screwed up. Lara Flynn Boyle, cool under fire, diabolical in her ingenuity, has both Cage and the audience wondering how she really thinks about him; one of the pleasures the movie saves until the very end is a revelation of what she really values, and why.
"Red Rock West" was directed by John Dahl, who co-wrote it with his brother, Rick. John is 34, Rick is 28, and this is their second feature. It's the kind of movie made by people who love movies, have had some good times at them, and want to celebrate the very texture of old genres like the western and the film noir. In a sense, we've been in Red Rock many times before: It's a town where plots lie in wait for unsuspecting visitors, where hatred runs deep, where love is never enough of a motive for doing anything when cash is available.
