RED ROCK WEST
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Newcomer filmmakers John and Rick Dahl
have the knack of really holding an audience's attention.
This is a tense and twisty crime thriller worthy of Jim
Thompson. Catch it quick because it is getting only a very
short release. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4)
The Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, introduced themselves to the world of cinema with BLOOD SIMPLE, an inexpensively made crime thriller set in Texas. Their next film was the comedy RAISING ARIZONA and they never returned to their original style. Now two more brothers, John and Rick Dahl, have come on the scene with their own tightly-written crime thriller, and you can be certain these brothers will be around for a while. RED ROCK WEST is a tense, edge-of-the-seat sort of crime film that could easily be taken for some Coen Brothers lost second film.
The action takes place entirely in or near the fly-speck Wyoming town of the title. Michael (nicely under-played by Nicholas Cage) comes to this area all the way from Texas for a promised job that evaporates when he is too honest about a knee injured during his time in the Marines. Out of luck and totally out of money he goes into Red Rock to see if he can get any kind of a job. There he meets Wayne (J. T. Walsh). Wayne has hired someone named Lyle from Texas for a job. Wayne sees Michael's license plates and assumes this is Lyle. Michael decides to pretend to be Lyle and grab up the job first. Then Michael finds out what the job is. He has to murder Wayne's wife Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle). Then the plot twists start coming. And they keep on coming. In fact, except for one sex scene there isn't a five-minute section of film that doesn't have some sort of radical plot twist. Michael is one innocent and honest man who finds himself in a nest of biting vipers. He has just the one wish: to get out of Red Rock. That sounds simple, but time and again events drag him into the town. As he gets more and more deeply involved his chances of just staying alive become smaller and smaller. One of the marks of how suspenseful this film is was the nervous laughter in audience as twists are revealed. The film is plotted so that nearly every apparent loose end attaches someplace else, much like Scorsese's AFTER HOURS.
After Cage's over-the-top performances in films like VAMPIRE'S KISS it is nice to see him underplaying a little. Walsh also is nicely menacing. Only Dennis Hopper seems insufficiently restrained as a fellow ex-Marine who runs into Michael almost literally.
RED ROCK WEST is a tidy little film noir thriller and an auspicious debut for the Brothers Dahl. The film has gotten only a very modest theatrical release and simultaneously is being released to video. Apparently no major distributor wanted to take a chance on it. With the reviews it has been getting there are going to be a lot of distribution executives looking for work in places like Red Rock, Wyoming. They should remember to find out what the new job is before they accept it.
Welcome to the film game, John and Rick. Stick around. I think you're gonna make it. I give RED ROCK WEST a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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